Colossians 2: 6 - 8
Different nations
hold different traditions and customs. Marriage is one of the important
ceremonies in all nations. Different rituals and customs are followed during
marriage ceremonies. Some follow weird customs; some become the noose ropes for
the bride’s family. In some traditions, son is married to bring a wife who is
no greater than a servant who has to pay for the marriage relationship with a
huge dowry. GOD wouldn’t be pleased with all these things (and customs) because
HE gave HIS life to save/ help us. HE is saying love your neighbor as yourself,
it is this word we have to obey and not traditions and customs. Every neighbor
starts at home first. This has to be followed by the bride and bridegroom and
their families without any exceptions. Some customs do not allow the parents of
the bride to be treated as parents but as outsiders. Word of GOD says to treat
even an outsider with love. This is
explained in the story of Good Samaritan by JESUS in Luke 10: 29 – 37 as to who should be considered our neighbor. How much more are the parents of both bride
and bridegroom to be respected and cared for? Whatever the worldly customs are,
christians can be called christians only when they follow and obey CHRIST else
they would be no different from heathen. Whatever our nation is, our law should
be love and mercy, our primary education should be the Word of GOD from Bible,
our family should be of JESUS, our custom should be to serve and treat everyone
equally, our language should be the language of love and sacrifice, our
identity should be CHRIST and our adversary should be satan and our hatred
should be towards all evil and wicked works in this world. We are one people in
JESUS and partakers of the kingdom of GOD, called to be the Sons of GOD. We are
above all others of the world and above all worldly elements. When the worldly
customs do not match the word of GOD, we need to put an end to those customs in
our lives and safeguard our identity as children of GOD. Any custom or
tradition which is against the law of love and mercy is from satan and this is
an easy way how a satan can deceive even a Christian when the child of GOD
doesn’t hold the right wisdom of the word of GOD.
What should your
priorities be?
1. Loving and pleasing God. The most
important priority on the vertical plane of your life must be to love and please
the Lord. Jesus was most concerned with His love relationship with the Father
and glorifying Him throughout His ministry here on earth. Jesus revealed His
personal priority in life when He said of the Father, “I always do those things that please Him” (John 8:29). Pleasing the Father was the ultimate desire
in the Savior’s heart and it must be in yours as well. Paul encouraged all
believers to make this the ultimate priority when he wrote: “We urge and exhort
in the Lord Jesus … how you ought to walk and to please God” (1 Thess. 4:1). Pleasing God first must be your number one priority. How can you do
that?
If you
want to please God you must first know Him. When Jesus prayed He acknowledged that knowing the Father is the
ultimate purpose of man. Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may
know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). God wants you to know Him in a personal way
and experience His life now and His life for eternity.
Once you
know Him personally then you must obey His commands, which will lead you into
God’s plan for your life. This is why
Jesus commanded His disciples to adjust their priorities so that He might add
to their lives all of the blessings He intended. He commanded, “Seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to
you” (Matthew 6:33). If Jesus declared that God and His
kingdom must be first, then there should be no question in your mind what your
first priority should be. The only
question is, does God and the kingdom hold this position in your life right
now?
What happens if you refuse to put Christ first? If you put something or someone
else first trouble is surely ahead. The Lord will never
be satisfied with second, third, or last place in your life. He must be your
first love (Rev. 2:4)!
Most
Christians will have no problem agreeing intellectually that Christ must be
first, but their behavior, decision-making, and daily choices reveal otherwise. Jesus recognized this contradiction between what we
say and do when He said to His disciples, "But, why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which
I say?” (Luke 6:46). Failing to do
what Jesus commands is a clear indicator that He is not first or the Lord of
your life.
If you realize that Jesus and His kingdom are
not really first, turn right now and ask His forgiveness and choose to give Him
this position. His life and love will begin to flood your soul. Do it now!
Now, let’s turn to the horizontal plane of your
life where all the people and responsibilities of your life lie. Which one of
these relationships must take the priority?
2. Your spouse. Of all your relationships and
responsibilities on the horizontal plane your spouse must hold the first
position. This fact is essential to establish right from the start
because there are a multitude of relationships that you must juggle throughout
your life. There are the pressures of children, parents, friends, ministry, and
your job. How can you be sure
that your spouse should be first?
To answer this question, consider Christ’s example and what was important to
Him. When you do, it becomes abundantly clear that His bride, the church, was His first priority. How do we know
this? Because Jesus emphasized many times His care and supreme love for His
sheep: He said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for
the sheep” (John 10:11). Jesus also said to the church,
“This is My body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19). “In My
Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I
go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3). Jesus had the
utmost concern for those who were to be His bride.
This is why husbands
are commanded to follow His example and are required to sacrificially love
their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it (Eph. 5:25). And, of
course, wives are to love and submit to
their husbands with equal self-sacrifice and love. If Jesus put His bride first, then you
should also put your spouse first in your heart and in relationship to all
others. These exhortations should settle the question of who should be first on
the horizontal plane.
However, if you allow your children, mother or father,
ministry, job, or hobbies to take this position you are not pleasing God and
conflicts will naturally arise with your spouse. Why? Because when
your mate looks at your priorities he or she will see that someone or something
else is more important to you than your one flesh relationship.
The Bible is clear on this point. There
is only one person on earth that you are called one flesh with; and that is
your spouse. God declared from the beginning: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). This passage dictates the preeminence of
the husband-wife relationship above all other relationships.
The
marriage bond is above your relationship with your parents or your children. Yes, you came from
your parents’ flesh, but one day you chose to leave and marry your spouse. Yes,
your children come from your flesh, but they are only temporarily in your home
as well. One day they will also leave you to marry someone else. This fact only proves that the permanent
relationship of husband and wife must take priority over your parents or your
children. Each should pray
for each other’s weakness and strengthen each other through prayers and
supplications near GOD.
In the Bible we see Job losing
everything including children during his trial time but GOD did not take away
his wife because she is his own flesh. Though Job’s wife asked Job to curse GOD
and die during his pain, agony and affliction; he corrected her but didn’t
resent or hate her for that. We can also see how faithful he was towards his
wife when he argued his righteousness before his friends.
Job 31: 1
Job 31: 9 –
12
We can see JESUS also mentioning this and explicitly explaining the
true meaning of adultery.
Mathew 5:
28
The same is the case with Abraham
and Sarah, GOD chose Sarah to be the mother of nations and kings, though Sarah
tried other ways of raising children for Abraham. But Abraham loved her till
the end.
Does
your spouse have this priority in your life? How can you be sure? Here are several ways to determine your answer.
a. Ask your mate if he or she believes they hold
this first position in your heart. If you really want to know, then don’t get
upset with the answer.
b. Have you had conflicts in the past where your
spouse has questioned your commitment or how much time you spend with other
people or on other pursuits? This would be a good indicator that your
priorities are a problem.
c. Has your spouse told you directly that he or
she believes you care more about your job, children, in-laws, or something else
more than you do him or her?
If your spouse has made any of these statements
then you must recognize that your priorities are wrong. Ask for forgiveness and adjust your priorities.
3. Your
children. It is obvious that children must take the next
position in your order of priorities because the needs of your immediate family
are primary. Scripture teaches that we must, “First learn to show piety at
home… for this is good and acceptable before God” (1 Tim. 5:4). Our
first ministry is to ‘disciple’ and ‘train’ our children before we ever try to
minister anywhere else. Why? Because our children are the most important
disciples in the kingdom of God. The Psalmist declared that God had
commanded all fathers to train their children in God’s Word so that, “The
generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they
may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in
God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments” (Ps. 78:5-7). Wives are also called to disciple
their children because Solomon included mothers as instructors in the family:
“My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of
your mother” (Prov. 1:8). If you minister to
multitudes and accumulate great possessions and yet fail to do all in your power
to win your own children to Christ, what good is it?
All parents
should understand that their children should have the same priorities in life
just like them as GOD purposed. The child they loved so much will grow to be an
adult, will get married one day and a new person (son-in-law/ daughter-in-law) will
enter the family. Here comes the difficult part. Most of the parents consider
their children to be their possessions and hence believe they have all the
right to interfere in their child’s (adult’s) family. They cannot digest the
fact that their once dependent child has to be treated as an independent family
having their set of duties to be accomplished as husband and wife.
This will create problems in the family, in-law’s
family, create misunderstandings, create gulfs between hearts, discontentment,
hatred, relationships outside marriage, addictions, lone internet surfing,
pornography and other forbidden things, mistrust, disloyalty, depressions,
disturbed bringing up of children, disagreements and finally can become the
source of destruction for GOD’s divine purpose of marriage leading to divorces.
Parents try to
put their conditions, judge in their own selfish view and feel neglected or
rejected if this is not accepted by their child who was once very loving and
obedient. They should first check whether what they are talking or trying to dictate/
negotiate is in line with GOD’s word or not. If possible, they should take the
opinion of any good Pastor/ man of GOD who can express opinion without any favoritism
and deliver the LORD’s word without fear, talks only that which is given to him
by the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD and not by these worldly customs and traditions.
Parents should
try to dissolve any disagreements between husband and wife by praying for them
fervently and talking to them healing words from the Bible, how they are united
in GOD for a divine purpose of GOD, and try to unite them at the earliest. They
should never try to dismantle the marriage relationship or add more fury into
their relationship with cut throat words or add fuel to their arguments and should
never be the cause of strife between husband and wife. Let not man separate what GOD had united.
4. Your service to the church. Some of you may be wondering why I
didn’t title this section Service to the Lord? Let me explain. If you love the Lord and you seek
first His kingdom, love your spouse as Christ loved the church, and you are
training your children to be His disciples, then you are serving the Lord in a
very real and effective way.
However, there
are many ministers, elders, deacons, Sunday school directors, and Sunday School
teachers that serve the church diligently but have failed to fulfill the first
three priorities I’ve discussed in this article. You could be a servant in
the church who rarely spends time in personal prayer and study of the
Scriptures. You could be a servant of the church and at the same time have a
terrible relationship behind closed doors with your spouse or children.
However, Jesus always made people and relationships more important than His
activities. Jesus would stop everything He was doing to speak with one woman at
a well or one individual who touched Him (John 4:5-26; Mark 5:25-34). What an example of priorities is
this!
If you are reading this right now and you are
serving the church in some capacity and have put that service above your spouse
or children, please hear what I am about to say. This can’t go on indefinitely.
When your service to the church has a higher priority than those people in your
own family, something has to give. Your marriage will
suffer and your children will become angry with you. Even your ministry will
become toilsome because when your home is not in order it’s difficult to
minister to others with joy. At the very least you will be unhappy. Your relationship at home must be your
priority. This is why Paul made it a requirement that a person’s house be
in order before that individual was allowed into church leadership. Paul said
that this person should be “One who rules his own house well, having his
children in submission with all reverence (for
if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the
church of God?)” (1 Tim. 3:4-5).
After your own house is in order then you may
seek a place of service where your gifts can be used for the glory of God. If
your own house is not in order and you do not have the support of your spouse,
you should adjust your priorities or you should remove yourself from your
ministry.
5. Your business or job. The reason your service to the Lord
is a higher priority than your job or business is because you are first a citizen of the kingdom of God. Paul
declared, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait
for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). However, you will obviously spend more time
involved in doing your job or business simply because making a living requires
it.
But, many have said to me, “I don’t have time to
serve the Lord or go to church or do family things because I’ve got to provide
for my family.” I would agree that providing for your family is very important,
but when there is never any time left to
serve the Lord or be a companion to your spouse or children, then something is
wrong. Why am I so sure? Because no one spends every waking minute at work
or at their place of business. A person
will always allow time for the other things that are important to him or her.
If you really have no time for God or your mate then you must be putting these
other things as a higher priority. This mistake will only make your
marriage and your whole spiritual life unfulfilling and unfruitful. Jesus
pointed this out when He described what happens to a person who has his
priorities wrong. Notice what Jesus said made a person’s life unfruitful: “The
cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other
things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19).
Have you allowed other things to choke the life
out of your relationship with the Lord or your marriage? If you want a
fulfilling life and a marriage that is blessed then you need to change your
priorities.
6. Responsibilities in the home. (1) Many conflicts come about in
marriage because one or both partners fail to fulfill their responsibilities in
the home. This one issue is the subject of many of my counseling sessions. When
a spouse is unwilling to help with parenting and discipline of the children, or
lend a hand with the chores, or is simply unavailable to help whenever there is
a need, resentment naturally builds in the marriage and eventually results in
conflict. Why? Because all marriage partners understand that they are a part of
a team, which requires each to be a servant to the other. These were the words
we pledged when we took our wedding vows. We all promised to love, honor,
protect, and serve our mate. To be a servant is to follow the example of Jesus.
He said, “Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant” (Matt: 20:26). Jesus also said that He didn’t
come to be served, but to serve (Matt: 20:28).
Is it your desire to be a servant in your home?
If it is, then lovingly serve your spouse when you’re asked to help (Gal. 5:13). As you do, your home will be
filled with a sense of companionship and love that only increases.
(2) It is every Christian’s duty to care for/ make
arrangements for the care of ill-parent(s) or lonely parent(s) or aged parent(s)
by providing shelter for them and looking after them. But it is good for
parents to stay separate till their married son/ daughter is properly bonded
with spouse, and should not interfere in their matters except when needed for a
right cause. If parents are healthy and able to manage their life, they should
stay separately and pray for their child’s welfare. There should be a lot of
prayers involved because two different set of entities (son/ daughter and
spouse) with different thinking, different mentalities, different tastes,
different lifestyles, sometimes different cultures, different habits, different
educations, different places, different food habits … (phew!) and so on are
going to share their bed, house, space and life together for a life time and
require a lot of adjustments from both of them.
There is no hard and fast rule that only husband’s
parents or wife’s parents should be taken care of. If such custom exists that
has to be wiped out of our Christian mind. The size of family has shrunk to
such an extent that hardly we can find more than two children in any family,
though some families in some places exist with more than two children. Families
having single child are on the rise now due to over population. It is not the
responsibility of only a son or eldest son to care for parents as some
traditions hold. In the Old Testament, we have seen how GOD esteemed a daughter
equal to a son when there are no sons in that family. So a daughter has the
same responsibility as a son.
Joshua 17: 3 - 6
3 But
Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of
Manasseh, had no sons, but daughters: and theseare the names of his daughters, Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah,
and Tirzah.
In
case eldest son or any other child is not caring parents properly, let the
other children care for parents not grudging over their brother, deeming it
their responsibility irrespective of what their other siblings are doing or not
doing.
Whether girl or boy, they are to be treated
well and are to be given good education. Both husband and wife in these times
are toiling hard for a decent living. It is now the joint
responsibility of both husband and wife in the chores of the house, bringing up
children, praying for them, training them up in the right way of the LORD,
looking after parents and in all other things. Both husband and wife should
feel responsible towards each other parents whenever they come for a stay or
when the need arises to take care of them when they are sick or much advanced
in age.
That is why JESUS criticized the scribes and
Pharisees how they misled people from their duty to care for parents by
twisting the word of GOD.
Mathew 15: 5, 6
However,
if there is any problem arising with any one of the parents or there is too
much interference, it is good to prayerfully approach and take the help of a spiritual
pastor who can come home, pray and advise after careful consideration
of the facts.
7. Friends. Relationships with people
other than your immediate family must always fall still lower on your priority
list. This does not mean that friendships are not worthwhile and
rewarding for us all. You need good friends. In fact, Scripture teaches that we
need “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). Good friends like this are hard to
find. But, Scripture also teaches that your spouse must be your
best friend on the horizontal plane of life. Solomon’s wife said
of her husband, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend” (Song
5:16). And of course, on the vertical
plane the Lord is your ultimate friend when you feel friendless. Jesus said, “You are my friends” (John 15:15).
However, many
individuals tell me that they have a better friendship with someone at work or
someone at church then they do with their own spouse. Sometimes this is
because your spouse has refused all your attempts to develop friendship. There
is not much you can do about this, except pray that their heart would be
changed. But, if you realize that you
haven’t set your mate as your priority in friendship and you spend more effort
and time with someone other than your mate, turn and adjust your priority.
Make the effort to do things together, seek out times for conversation, attempt
to romance your mate. Many times couples just get lazy in their efforts at
friendship. If this is you, reverse direction today.
8. Hobbies. Your recreational time or your pursuit of a hobby will usually be very
similar to friends on your priority list because most people pursue their
hobbies with their friends and family. But, if your recreational
pursuits, or involvement in team sports, or any other hobby take priority over
your wife and family, this again will always create strife at home. I’ve seen men who are away with friends whenever they find free time and I've seen wives who are always attending status parties and socializing. These schedules make for very little time at home with spouse and children, which naturally erodes the companionship in the marriage
and family.
Does this problem or one of the other issues in
this article sound like your situation? If so, prayerfully consider how you can
change it.
How can you change?
1. Make a list of your
priorities. When couples
come in for counseling and they are struggling with their priorities I begin by
asking them to make a written list of all their activities. This list helps
them to see exactly what they are doing with their time. Then I ask the couple
to place this list in order of priority, as they believe it actually is vs.
what it should be. This allows me to see if their priorities are in harmony
with their own beliefs and with those of the Word of God.
2. Compare your list. The next thing I do is to ask this
couple to compare their list with the one I’ve given in the previous section of
this publication. If the priorities they’ve listed are in the correct order
that’s great. Most of the time they are not. When their priorities are not
correct I ask them to make a decision.
3. Make a decision. If the couple or individual is
over-committed to different pursuits or over-committing time to these
endeavors, they need to decide how they can adjust or remove certain activities
from the list completely. There are many things that we give our time to that
are good things, but they are not essential and can be very detrimental to the
overall health of a marriage and family. These are difficult but necessary
decisions to make.
When a
couple will adjust their priorities their personal lives and marriage will
begin to experience the blessings God intends for their home. I’ve seen people restore harmony to their marriage
and relationships by a simple adjustment in how much time is allotted to
working at their job, or how much time is spent with friends or recreation.
Others I’ve found need a more radical approach because they have become so
over-committed to other things that the survival of their marriage is in
jeopardy. They must completely remove several items from their list. In other
words, you may have to stop playing on that second softball team or not go to
that home party to buy kitchenware so you can spend more important time with
your spouse or children. You can only slice the pie of your available time into
so many pieces.
Remember, James said, “If
any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and
without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). May God give you this wisdom to order your priorities
aright!
There is no other greater help than our own prayer to GOD. Trusting
in HIM completely that HE will restore us, perfects us and then acknowledging
to HIM all our weaknesses from the least to the greatest, from the smallest to
the biggest will move GOD to acknowledge our honesty about our self and
repentance in our inner self. Even in the
worst weaknesses or falls, we should not move away from GOD feeling guilty,
rather move nearer to HIM again and again, confessing and asking GOD for help
in our weak areas. This will establish our faith in HIM and also plant us in
HIM so that GOD starts doing things for us which were once impossible with us.
There will be a change in our thinking, in our relationships and our
priorities. Oh how wonderful this earth
would be if people move in their dealings according to GOD’s plan, how great
would be the joy of our CREATOR when ‘we’ the families of the Earth obey HIS
divine plan.
