Would you do the same – especially if it were your bride?

The article below is definitely worth reading. New York parks worker, Gary Gaddist, said, “It was a love thing.”

Often I talk with men who know little to nothing about what it means to love their wife as Christ loves the church. Most men, yes even professing Christian men, just don’t care. Even men who do care don’t have this down perfect. After all, who really has perfected this type of love? We are all to continue to actively understand and learn and carry out the agape love of Christ for everyone, especially our brides. Read here the link below and then continue reading.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/parks-worker-gary-gaddist-lord-ring-artist-danielle-hatherley-carroll-lost-wedding-band-trash-article-1.1143373#ixzz24T50nses

Now, there can be a dangerous side to this. (meaning my paragraph above, not the article)

Really?

Really.

Well what would that be?

Simple.

I have met many men who are coming to understand the need for loving their wives as Christ loves the church. But what is dangerous about many of these men (maybe even you)? Many men are growing in this biblical knowledge as it pertains to loving our wives, but many men have placed their wives higher than Christ.

What do I mean?

Well this.

Men are to strive to love as Christ loves, but many men are failing in their intimate and devoted life unto God as foremost. Very little prayer, meaning devoted times of solitude, and little time spent pondering, meditating upon (not meaning some sort of eastern meditation), and wrestling with God over Scripture. Many men, in the name of loving their wives, actually are unable to adequately and fully love their wives because they place their wives on a wrong pedestal above God. Time spent with our bride and a dying to ourselves for her is necessary, but deep conviction of the Spirit, drawing upon the Lord for strength (and this in private [as the godly men of old have said, "shut up to God"]), and the desire for His actual presence, must be the primary passion of any married man seeking to be a godly man of the Most High. If we do not hear from God Himself, then how can we really know exactly how to love His precious daughter.

Not to mention the imbalance of all of this, a man who places his wife as more important actually sets her up for disaster, never fully meets her needs and may lead her to puff up in pride. She ends up trying (hopefully trying) to follow a leadership that is fractured thus leaving her fractured. This downwards spiral ends in the inability to solve difficult and sometimes lasting problems in the marriage. The wife ends up drawing her strength from other people, her children and/or her activities, when she should be drawing from God first and then from her husband (as the husband must, at least in season, rely upon her wife – the two shall become one flesh). If a wife is not being sanctified (or very slowly), refuses to let down her pride, refuses to follow her role in Christ, carries about much vanity, or is unorganized, a busy body, or any combination of these things (not to mention others), then, at least the majority of the time, the husband’s focus is off and Christ is not in a place on high in his life – thus he is the one at fault. (Remember though, this is not to take away from the individual sin of the wife and disobedience to her Lord. She is still accountable before God and cannot use her husband as an excuse to sin.)

So, are you willing to do what the NY Parks worker has done, and this for a stranger?

Are you willing to dive into the garbage of sin that still lurks in your soul? Are you willing to spend your time and your days searching for greater glories of God, greater manifestations of the Spirit in your life, greater time with God Himself and more training in righteousness?

Are you willing to count everything you selfishly desire to dig out the gems of Christ?

Email me and receive a FREE pdf copy of, Christ Died for His Bride, So What’s Your Problem? You can also still get your FREE pdf copy of, Realities of a True Christian. www.time2stand.com/reality.html

Jeremy Strang

Christian. Husband. Father. Author.

www.time2stand.com