Alignment
Alignment is important for a lot of things.
It keeps your car going straight.
It keeps water flowing through your pipes.
And - it helps the power of the Holy Spirit flow into your life.
The Kingdom of God is powerful and
God seeks to pour His Kingdom - His will - into the earth.
We are the vessels He is using.
God's Kingdom is also a place of order.
He establishes authority and positions and roles for a seamless work.
When we align to the order of His design, His Kingdom comes.
One of the most beautiful examples is marriage.
Marriage is foundational in creation. God made man and woman very specifically and intentionally. The uniqueness of each becomes even more beautiful in the joining.
When you consider both man and woman are created in the image of God -
combined with the fact that they are innately different -
the joining of a man and woman completes a special picture of God.
It also holds a covenant purpose that is much deeper than starting a family.
Order is important in the union of a man and woman because of God's design.
Ephesians 5 describes the order God prescribes.
It speaks to the needs and differences of the husband and the wife,
but at a much deeper level, echoes the story of Christ and the church.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. - Ephesians 5:21-33
Men need - respect
Women need - love
Women function in love more naturally, because they can relate to that need.
Scripture gives them direction on respect, because of the innate desire for control.
Men are given the instruction about love, because it meets a special need in the woman.
Men don't naturally produce the care a woman seeks and understands.
Psychologists have danced around these truths for decades, but God has always known.
The needs and roles of the man and woman are different.
There is a beautiful balance in giving and being what is needed.
When we seek to obey God in our marriages, He enables us to be the things we are not on our own.
By God's design, we focus on the need of the spouse, rather than what comes naturally.
Love and submission take the man and woman to a place of unselfish love.
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God has set the man as the head and leader of the family.
The love God requires of the man makes him a servant leader in the example of Christ.
The respect the woman gives to his role and efforts is a needed affirmation and support.
Choosing to be those things for each other builds unity.
This design was given from the beginning.
God gave Adam the instructions for the garden before Eve had even arrived.
Adam was in charge of the care and obedience in God's creation.
The serpent intentionally spoke to Eve, trying to flip roles and create doubt.
The whole script in Genesis 3---- shows a breakdown in their roles.
Submission
Submission is crucial for alignment.
Picture two pieces of pipe.
Pipes are meant to line up with each other.
Submission is not a question of equality, but of position.
Christ is the head,
so the man and woman are both under Jesus.
The man is to be the leader of the family,
so He lines up under Jesus;
the woman lines up under him.
Submission means not jumping out of line.
Submission means respect for a God-given role.
Submission is crucial for alignment.
When the couple is aligned under God, the Spirit flows freely down through them -
into the family - and beyond.
When the husband or the wife slides out of place or doesn't know his place,
the floodgates of Heaven are held back.
The couple is not positioned for the flow.
When a husband is aligned under Christ, his prayers have an effect on his family
and a special work on behalf of his wife if she is not. 1 Peter 3:7
Wives have a unique dual role: positioned under Christ and under her husband.
A wife can be in the correct position, even if her husband is not.
She can line up under Christ and
submit to her husband through respect.
Her alignment, obedience, and prayer can work powerfully in her husband's heart.
Then her alignment has prepared space for her husband to move over under Christ.
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
1 Peter 3:1-2
And when the beautiful miracle of a man and wife, joined under Christ, occurs
God wraps it and seals it.
(just like a coupling on a pipe)
God secures that union.
Let no one split apart what God has joined.
-Mark 10:9
Joined.
Joined in covenant under God.
Joined to spread His glory.
Joined to understand and reflect the covenant God desires with us. The bride of Christ is the church.
God is seeking an intimate covenant with His people through Jesus Christ.
Alignment in our marriages builds Godly families, but it also speaks the gospel.
(part 1 in a series)
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