The Blessing and Wisdom of Loving Your Wife

"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth.
As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
An always be enraptured with her love.
For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman,
And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all their paths.
His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray."
Proverbs 5:18-23.

Several things tugged at my heart as I read these verses. There is a promise that our offspring, our children, will be blessed if we, as men, continue to rejoice with the wife of our youth. How hard is that in today's world.

Our wives suffer in comparison to the women that are paraded before us on television. From hamburger commercials to barely eighteen underwear models, these images are thrown in front of us a thousand times a day. Deep in our reptilian brains, these images register as available, possible mates - it doesn't know any better - and that takes attention away from our wives.

How can our wives of twenty or thirty or more years, who have given birth to children, raised them, cleaned up after them, cleaned up after us, cooked thousands of dinners and washed countless plates and floors and loads of laundry - how can our wives compete with the fresh faced model on television or in the magazine or the actresses on the sitcoms or in the movies - who have fitness and nutrition coaches and make up artists and hairdressers at their service - how can our wives compete?

The answer is they should not have to. The words of wisdom from God teach us to rejoice in her unconditionally - to be enraptured with her love. There is no instruction that says do that only if she's still hot - if she kept her bikini body - if she goes to the gym - if she starves herself or gets cosmetic surgery. It says we are to "always be enraptured with her love."

Enraptured means to receive intense pleasure or joy - we are to find intense pleasure or joy from our wives' love for us. And shouldn't we? She has fought four our marriage for decades, perhaps. In my case, my wife has put up with me going through times of despair, three different careers, and, harder than anything else, my unfaithfulness to her - the breach of trust. Yet she has fought for our marriage. She believed in it, even when I didn't. She had faith in it, in her vows and in our love. She showed strength even when I was weak. As I came to realize that, I began to understand what it meant to find joy in her love. No one else could love me like that - no one except the wife of my youth.

My flesh tugged toward the immoral woman. Toward the supposed pleasure of physical attraction, of seduction, of mysterious, forbidden pleasure. It has been difficult to overcome. I share the internal conflict of the Apostle Paul when he wrote: "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do...For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice...For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Romans 7:14 - 24.

And we struggle, men, with the war between the flesh and the spiritual everyday. We are told to find joy in our wives' love - but we are shown images of "possible" joy all the time. We are pulled, torn apart inside, between the spiritual law that we should follow God's commands and the burning desire to succumb to the demands and lusts of the flesh. We are goaded by a barrage of images daily, to pursue lust - pursue the will of the flesh - and to abandon our yearning for God and our spiritual selves.

Paul, understood this, recognizing that he was pulled by "all manner of evil desire," (Romans 7:8), cried out, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Romans 7:24. Who will deliver us? Alone, we cannot overcome this inner conflict. Alone, we will always struggle with the flesh, with our physical, human desires - no matter how much we want to reject them. And even if we don't act on them, just allowing the desire to manifest itself in our hearts and minds puts us in danger. Jesus taught us the following:

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Matthew 5:27-28.

An impossible standard, I think - isn't it? I know that based on this standard, I've broken one of the ten commandments more times in my life than I can count. Advertisers count on it - every time that lady comes out wearing only a fur coat and her underwear and eating a hamburger - I feel the desire welling up inside - and how about the beautiful women we see everyday at work, in stores, at church, in the neighborhood. Our flesh, our sinful nature is constantly bombarded with images that arouse us. That create desire in us.

I think we have to be honest and admit it exists if we are going to deal with it. It is uncomfortable, no doubt - but much better to deal with it then let if fester and have the infection grow. We have to throw off the yoke of this sin if we are going to find joy in the arms of the wives of our youth - if we are going to love them back the way they love us. So, let's not pretend it doesn't happen, men. Let's be honest.

Remember, "[i]f we way that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1John 1:8. I lived for years self-deceived. I thought I was walking a Christian life, just messing up  now and then. Sometimes, I was ashamed enough to confess. Sometimes not. But I kept the feelings of the flesh to myself - it was shameful, I thought, and it was private, personal - it shouldn't affect my relationship with others. But it led to more and more sin, and eventually, led to unfaithfulness to my wife. I didn't deal with it, I didn't confess it and repent from it - I denied it, instead and deceived myself- walking in and out of darkness for decades. And the infection spread.

Ultimately, God disciplined me, and I realized that I had been walking in the darkness, deceiving myself and not practicing the truth. I was called upon to confess and to repent. The repentance is the harder part. Because the memory of the lustful pleasure remains in the flesh, as does the desire for it. It is a daily battle. A daily plea for God's assistance to help me walk in the light, to have fellowship with him.

The more I spend time in God's word, in prayer, and in fellowship with like-minded people - the more I focus on the spiritual part of me - focusing outwardly, on my relationship with God, the easier it is to find joy in my wife. And it is all the more rewarding to do so, because I find joy in God, too.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1John1:9. I can count on this promise now. I can count on it because I am not deceiving myself and walking in the darkness. When I find the darkness calling, I call out to God. I pray for His help in overcoming it. I no longer have to ask "who will deliver me from this body of death?" After thirty years of thinking I was a born again believer, I finally learned the answer, just as Paul did: "I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

The task becomes one of setting my mind daily, even hourly, and sometimes minute by minute, on the things of the Spirit. Romans 8:5-6. It comes down to a war of worlds - a war between the world of the Spirit, that dwells in us and the flesh that also dwells in us - that we are told to put to death. The struggle for me was that I continued to love the things of the world after I became a Christian. I got rid of some of my sins, but not all of them.

I learned, through experience, that by loving the world, "the love of the Father is not in him" [me]. 1 John 2:15. It can't be. We can't love two masters. Matthew 7:24. "For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world." 1 John 2:16. As long as we remain in the world, and not in Christ, we remain in our sin and are passing away along with the World. 1 John 2:17.

The battle lines were blurred in me, before. Because I wanted them to be blurred. I wanted to have the things of the world that thrilled me, that I lusted after or desired, that I thought I deserved, in my life  - not just sexual, but financial and social, too. And I rationalized that it was okay that they were there - God wouldn't give me a desire for them unless He wanted me to have them. But I deceived myself - I mistook my desires for his guidance. I walked in darkness and the light was not in me.

Now, slowly, I begin to see with some clarity the difference. Now I hope for victory over the world, over my flesh and desire to do His will - to follow his commands. I pray for discernment and for strength. And when I feel the world creeping in, I seek Him and try to focus on the things of the Spirit.

For there is a glorious promise offered to us: "And this is the promise that he has promise us - eternal life." 1John2:25. While we cannot be saved by following the law, we can be condemned by it. Our flesh is subject to it. But what we could not do, God did. Romans 8:2. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Romans 8:3-4.

"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." Romans 8:11. May it be so.

There is great wisdom in avoiding the temptations of the flesh, the seductress - the worldly ideal of women portrayed daily to us - and the worldly idea of life as portrayed to us. There is great wisdom and great happiness (not to mention contentment) in remembering to find joy in the love of the wife of our youth. God sees our ways. He knows us. And He has provided this woman for us so that we may find joy at home - that we may be blessed. Do not let him see us fall prey to sin - but instead, rejoice in the love he has given us and let it keep us safe throughout our lives.

Find joy in the love of the wife of your youth. I pray daily now that I can overcome the flesh that would tear me away from her. And daily, I find that my joy is growing. And through this, I learn to be closer to God. This is a living message to me, present in my home for a daily reminder. As I seek to walk in the Spirit, I seek to overcome the things of the world that would tear me away from God. His instruction and His discipline in this has broader applications for me - it applies to the whole of my walk with Him. As I learn to be obedient in this one thing, I learn to be obedient in all things. Thank you, Lord.

Challenge:

Take some time to examine yourself. See where and how the world pulls on your flesh. Admit it to God. In prayer, ask for the forgiveness - repent - make your mind new - and pray for the strength to live in His Spirit - to seek the things of the Spirit. Rest in the knowledge that He has overcome the world and He can help you to, also, if you sincerely want to come out of the darkness and into His light.

May God bless you and keep you.

Bob Vogel

The Most Powerful Christian Testimony

Love one another ....

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with truth; bears all things, believes a things, hopes all things, ...endures all things. Love never fails...But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor. 13:3-8, 13.

Love never fails. In a world where everything seems to fail - where daily we are discouraged by the news and the ever increasing selfish demands of our culture, by violence and hedonism - it is good to know that love, the true deep abiding love of God, never fails us...

And we are taught to love one another..."A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one another." John 13:34-35.

The world, when it looks upon Christians, should see this love that we have for one another - the same love Jesus showed us. This is the greatest testimony of all.

It is also a mark of our salvation: "And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments." 1John2:3. He commanded us to love one anther with the same depth of love that he showed us when he took the sins of the world upon his shoulders and died to pay the price for them. 1John3:16.

Upon this example of His great love for us, we are to base our love for one another. 1John4:11.
If our testimony is to have meaning, it is time to follow Jesus' commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and body. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another the way He loved us. If we just do these things in our daily walk, imagine what a change, what an impact our living testimony could be to the world.

Amen.

How can I let myself worship?

I read a devotional written by the legendary preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It makes me take a step back and look hard at myself. I have to wonder how to let myself go so that I can truly worship in the way that the Bible declares I should and in a way commensurate with the glory God deserves for all he has done for me in my life, not the least of which is that He sent His Son, Jesus, to demonstrate a truly godly life, to fulfill the ancient covenant made with Moses and discussed by the prophets, and then to die on the cross and be resurrected, all so that my sin may be forgiven and I may have eternal life. And not just for me, but for every man, woman and child born to this earth.

He provides for me everyday. He has given me a family and friends. He has given me a place to sleep out of the weather and more food to eat than I need. He has blessed us in so many ways. Yet, I am fearful to let go and praise Him. I am afraid, somehow, to expose myself - to what? Perhaps to public ridicule? Oh, look at him? He can't sing - he's got his hands in the air - it just makes his belly look bigger - and look at his bald spot!

What does it say about my faith that I can't let go of my fears and just step up and praise Him who has saved my life and provided so many blessings in it?

Spurgeon said:

We will be glad and rejoice in Thee. We will not open the gates of the year to the dolorous notes of the sackbut, but to the sweet strains of the harp of joy, and the high sounding cymbals of gladness. "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise unto the rock of our salvation." We, the called and faithful and chosen, we will drive away our griefs, and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles, we who have the sweetening tree to cast into Marah's bitter pool, with joy will magnify the Lord. Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples in which Thou dwellest, will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus. We WILL, we are resolved about it, Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonour our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence. We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies, let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem. We will BE GLAD AND REJOICE: two words with one sense, double joy, blessedness upon blessedness. Need there be any limit to our rejoicing in the Lord even now? Do not men of grace find their Lord to be camphire and spikenard, calamus and cinnamon even now, and what better fragrance have they in heaven itself? We will be glad and rejoice IN THEE. That last word is the meat in the dish, the kernel of the nut, the soul of the text. What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, aye, and every drop of their fullness in Him! Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, Thou art the present portion of Thy people, favour us this year with such a sense of Thy preciousness, that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in Thee. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.

From Morning and Evening Devotions.

So, this year, I will learn how to be glad and rejoice. I will learn how to be joyful in His presence. I will praise the name of Jesus and thank God for sending Him. I will learn how to set aside my fears and forget to worry about what other people think of my actions.

A Good Gentile - don't be!

I remember when I first became a Christian, almost thirty years ago. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, gave me a Bible. I started reading in Matthew. Everything was fine until I hit the Sermon on the mount - especially Matthew 6:19 through 6:34. Jesus teaches us that our preoccupation with attaining possessions and material wealth, even to the extent of obtaining basic needs like clothing and food, should not motivate our lives. Instead, we are told that God already knows we need these things. And, like the birds or the flowers, He will provide for our needs.

I grew up being taught that you needed to dedicate your life to hard work and achievement. Success is measured by what you have. The old joke that whoever dies with the most toys wins spoke an ironic truth to us. Thus, professions and businesses that generated the greatest amount of income and wealth were labelled successes. We were taught to go to college and to work hard in one of those areas. So, MD's, MBA's, JD's, BS and MS degrees in science, math and engineering, these were all areas to pursue. Alternatively, you could start a successful business: contracting, retail, etc. So, you either were the boss, the talent or the owner. These were the marks of success.

No one, not one time, ever said that the person who dedicated his life to seeking out God's Kingdom and God's righteousness was successful. In fact, many wealthy men I knew begrudged supporting a minister because he didn't really work. How much did he deserve? After all, we paid for his house and his car and his office. If it wasn't for us, he wouldn't have a job to begin with - these thoughts emanate from the mind set that you are valued by what you produce and acquire.

Yet, the most influential teacher in history, the King of Kings, the Son of God, the great counselor, the Savior, who is credited with understanding the true nature of the world and of God and of our relationship to him, told us, specifically, not to worry about obtaining success or things.

Instead, He taught that it was the most important thing for us to go out and seek God - to find his Kingdom. Along the way, we are also to seek out His righteousness (His goodness - holiness - attributes that we are supposed to then emulate.

I am fifty-two years old. I've spent my entire adult life pursing the wrong thing, according to the scripture. According to the teaching of Christ, to whom I have dedicated my life and in whom I have hope for my eternal future, I have been wrong for thirty years. When you are twenty, life seems endless and time impossibly long. At fifty, time becomes a lot more real. Suddenly, you the end of your life becomes much more relevant and the twenty, thirty or forty or so years you have left become increasingly valuable. Everything comes into question.

I think perhaps that this dose of reality is healthy - I think it also is responsible for the strange thing we call a mid-life crisis. If you ask my wife, Karen, she'll tell you I've been having a mid-life crisis for ten years. I guess mine is chronic. But, at least one of the causes of my angst is that I worry about this particular issue: I want to live correctly, to live for the right purpose - I don't want to waste my life.

The fear I have is that, after a long career trying to earn money and instead developing an increasing debt load, I will find that I have foolishly pursued the wrong thing. However, after fifty years of conditioning, and thirty years of pursuing the goal of the gentile, I don't know how not to do that. I wasn't sure thirty years ago when I learned about it. I can tell you that I have failed to learn it through the pursuit of wealth and prosperity.

So, I come to this point - my life and the world that I life if are in direct conflict with the teaching of Jesus. Our entire western culture is now based on consumption and debt. It is not just in this passage, but in many passages in the Bible that consumption and debt are warned against. The debtor is the slave to the lender. And this is a truth. I cannot now turn away from a career that generates my income. I can't even modify it to any great extend. Why? Because I owe - we have struggled for almost ten years to eliminate most of our debt. However, we didn't plan well for college. So, in addition to a mortgage, we owe a significant amount of student loans - both for my second career as a lawyer and for our children's college educations.

I do not begrudge any of this, but it has created a trap. I cannot change unless I can either pay off these debts first or find an alternative source of income, since it is my responsibility to pay. I take that responsibility seriously. However, it forces me into a position that leaves little choice or flexibility. So, what do I do?

I am trying to figure out how to integrate into my life, Jesus' teaching. I am trying to eliminate my consumptive habits. I have other bad habits, too, but one thing at a time. I am not only battling my own nature, I am battling the essence of our culture. Even our government behaves this way - they are consumptive and creators of debt. And, they give us money back in the hope that we will buy more stuff and stimulate our economy, which is driven by consumption. There is no thought to sufficiency - we have to grow, that is the mantra? Why? Because if we don't grow, we can't pay back the debt.

Why is a healthy economy measured in terms of growth? I guess that is a loaded question. There are different kinds of growth. There is a natural growth that is associated with the increase in the population. What I mean, though, is geometric growth. The economy is seen as healthy only if it is growing faster than the natural increase. In other words, we all have to buy more, every year, for the economy to work. This means that our incomes have to go up every year, so we have more to spend. Incidentally, this is also the government's motive in trying to grow income - because increased income means increased taxes - this is the gambl they are making when they create long term debt. When the economy doesn't grow as fast as they need it to to create increasing revenue, then the model fails and we can go out of business. No one wants that, so everyone's mantra has become grow, grow, grow.

That's where the debt comes in, if we use debt to grow, we can increase the economy faster because debt creates leverage. Instead of only having ten dollars to invest in my business, product, or service, I can invest ten times that by borrowing. That's what business does, and now, that's what individuals do - which is what caused the bubble and melt down in real estate in the first decade of this century. Since the depression, in the 1930s, that is also what the government has done. It is beyond any party affiliation - some borrow more than others, but, mostly, that is dictated by the times, not by the politics. The politics seem to dictate more about where the money is spent and how it is raised - it doesn't address the underlying issue of pursuing growth.

So, in every facet of our culture, we are urged to spend - from our government to our businesses. Television and any other media that can be used to reach out to us is a tool to urge us to buy stuff, to seek things out. Everywhere I turn, I am bombarded by people urging me to buy their product or service. I'm sure that many of these products or services are fine, but, most of them are not necessary. I think the salesman know this, too. So, they try to show my why I need them - they try to show me how my life will be better if I buy them.

The purpose of it all is to create a society based on pursing the things we want or think we want and things we need. But Jesus taught us differently:

Mat 6:19

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

	Mat 6:20	but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
	Mat 6:21	For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
	Mat 6:22	"The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
	Mat 6:23	but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
	Mat 6:24	"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
	Mat 6:25	"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
	Mat 6:26	Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
	Mat 6:27	And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
	Mat 6:28	And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
	Mat 6:29	yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
	Mat 6:30	But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
	Mat 6:31	Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
	Mat 6:32	For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
	Mat 6:33	But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
	Mat 6:34	"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

 
There are a lot of things to talk about in this passage. For example, the issue of loyalty - who do you serve? But, in the end, it comes down to faith. We scramble after things because we thing we need them and if we don't go get them, then we won't have them. This is motivation through fear. If we are fearful, this means that we don't really trust what Jesus is saying, that God will provide if we seek Him first. Instead, we rely on ourselves and don't rely on God.

The second motivator is greed. Beyond the basics of life, what do we really need? Yet, because of the culture in which we live, a culture that values the rich more than the poor, the wealthy over the middle class, those that have more things and higher quality things over those who have less. If you shop at Walmart, you are subject to ridicule by those who shop at higher end stores. Pocketbooks made out of exactly the same materials can sell for hundreds of dollars or twenty dollars, depending on the logo and the name. The same with shoes, or pants or suits or golf clubs or cars. Houses that function exactly the same can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars difference in price depending on the location.

This all arises out of our greed nature - or lust for better, more, faster, etc. The pursuit of the gentile has rocketed out of control. And, remember, our culture encourages it, from the President on down, from Wall Street to Madison Avenue to Hollywood Blvd. We are urged, encouraged, coached, cajoled, guilted, and teased into super-consumption, until it drives our lives. We are offered a multitude of entertainment choices to keep us glued to the marketplace of commercials. It is no wonder that this problem is pervasive.

Yet, in a soft, simple voice Jesus instructs us not to go down that road. Or, if we are on it, to change pathways. Stop being anxious. Stop pursuing what the gentiles want. Don't be a good gentile - instead, seek first God's Kingdom. Shed the fear and greed and learn to operate in faith. This is my goal, now, today.

As I go forward, with this blog, I will continue to discuss the issues that arise from this passage.