How Does A Man Show Love For His Family
God has placed within every man the potential for greatness when it comes to being a leader in his family. One can be a great husband or a great father regardless of the amount of money he has in the bank, regardless of the color of his skin, regardless of the neighborhood in which he lives, regardless of his age, and regardless of the type of job that he may have.
Our society would have us believe that the way to greatness is through the accumulation of wealth, of status, and of power. It would have us believe that if we get these things on the outside, somehow they will permeate into greatness back at home.
So we give an inordinate amount of time to work and careers, in order to give our families the good things of life. If we give them the right house, the right car, the right education, the right allowance, the right vacation, and the right jewelry then we will end up with the right life. The people we live with are not as impressed with our outside accomplishments and titles as the world is. Our wives and kids don’t care if we are the CEO, the vice president, or the star athlete. They are more concerned with what kind of husband or father we are.
What our families need is the right man. You can be that man. The right man is a man brave enough to allow Jesus Christ to set the priorities in his life. You see the call of Christ on our lives, is not necessarily the fulfillment of the American Dream. As a matter of fact, it may be in turning away from the self centered culture in which we find ourselves, to listen for the voice of Jesus. The word of God says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Now marriage is a real good thing. Is there anybody here besides be that got married for selfish reasons. I didn’t announce I was looking for a woman to serve. We were looking for somebody who we thought was going to make our lives better than what they were. We were thinking of our sexual fulfillment and how from now on there would be an endless supply of sex in the marriage. Nobody had bothered to tell us that the women we were marrying also came in for some selfish reasons. They were looking for an endless supply of emotional intimacy and support. They were seeking a husband who would understand their needs without even having to ask.
Instead of the perfect soul mate coming together for a perfect marriage we found a different scenario. What was reality? We have two sinners coming together with a list of faults, some deliberately hidden and some unknown and yet to be revealed, and somehow they expected happiness to flow freely out the relationship.
How many of you have ever had the perfect evening out planned, only to see it ruined by a misunderstood comment?. Our happy moment and money down the tubes. We like to think that the purpose of marriage and having kids, is to be happy. What if God’s purpose for marriage and kids is not so much happiness as it is holiness.
What if God gave you the wife and the children that you have in order to help you become holy? What if God says, your family is my tool to make you more like my son, Jesus? What if we have been called to love them in order for God to change us?
I have a terrible problem with time. I believe you should be on time. My wife is always late. She makes us late. I see time as a taskmaster. She puts meeting the needs of people ahead of being on time. But what if God gave me my wife, to turn my attitude on time attitude into one of holiness. What if When I think in those terms, I recognize my time schedule is not to be bully stick against my wife when she’s late.
What if sex in marriage is to make me holy and not just happy? It makes me realize that sex isn’t all just about me. What if my child’s attitude problem is to make me holy. Did God set this whole thing up for me to love my wife and my children in order to make me holy. If God did, then I need to recognize that grace should be more a part of my life.
We love our wives and children by being selfless. Every man can be a great father or a great husband because being selfless is a choice. God wants to build in each of us, the traits that make us wives and our children feel loved. It is going to take actual time to do it. No coach can build a great team without spending actual time with the team. The team needs to know the coach believes in them. The team needs to know the coach is in this thing with them. Does your family know that you believe in them? Does your wife feel it? Would your son say he’s on your team?
Most of us know what it feels like to feel the love our wives or the love of our children. Our goal should be to keep that love alive. We don’t intentionally try to kill it, and yet we find ways to do it. What causes us to lose? We don’t fall out of love as much as we fall out of repentance.
One night when my wife and I was having a discussion trying to figure out where our marriage had gotten off track she told me, “ You no longer say you’re sorry as much as you use to.” Now I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop saying “I’m sorry” and I didn’t even think it was true, but I had to deal with the reality that she felt it was true. Now looking back, I’m sure it was true. I was justifying my actions more than apologizing for them.
I didn’t need to give my wife a special gift to win her heart back or to express my love. I needed to go back to admitting my faults and apologizing more regularly. I suspect I had allowed pride to sneak back into my life and given it a foothold in my life that was keeping from humbling myself.
One of the greatest threats to our family is that we think we’re okay. How many of you have ever felt in your heart “does this woman realize how blessed she is to have a man like me. Do the kids realize what a great father I am.” We think we’re pretty good because we compare ourselves to the worst guy in church or the worse one in the neighborhood.
Rarely do we compare ourselves to Jesus Christ as the standard. We are called to love our wives and our children out of our humility and not out of our pride. Have we ever tried to see the man that she is married to or to see the father that they have.
The Scriptures say that we all stumble in many ways. It is so easy to spot the faults of our wives and of our children, yet we are stumbling in our relationships to them as well. One guy said, why is it so surprising that you get two adult sinners who are stumbling in life, they get married have sex and produce little sinners who are stumbling in life, and you end up having a family that has relationship problems.
Love is a decision on our part to appreciate the marriage and the family that God has given to us. It may not be the one we wanted or the one we would have chosen. But it is where God has us at this moment. God’s word told us that everyone who gets married is going to have problems in this life.
Our pride tells us that if only this other person would change my life would be easier. We think the change needs to come from the other person, when in fact the change needs to come from us, so that we can be free to love this other person. Think for a moment what really bugs you about your wife or your child? What would happed if you gave that to the Lord, and said God, use this to make my attitude more like Jesus. Let my love for her, be bigger than this annoyance or irritation in my life.
The world tells us to just bail out and go to greener pastures. You can have a greener pasture if you chose to love right where you are. Someone has said the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. Erma Bombeck said, actually the grass is greener where you water it.” How many of you are willing to ask God to help you pour some water on your wife? Willing to ask God to help you pour some water on your kids?
Do you know how different it would be if we truly believed when Jesus said, “I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.” Now imagine for a moment you and your wife or your kids are having a heated discussion, and you see Jesus standing behind the person as you argue. How many of you are going to argue in a slightly different kind of a way? Why? Because our goal is no longer to just win the argument, our goal is to be found acceptable in the eyes of God.
We can be so focused on winning the argument, that we are oblivious to the collateral damage we are doing to the relationship. Sometimes for the cause of Christ and for the relationship, we have to endure some things for a while. We love our wives and our children through our patience. Every problem is not resolved overnight.
I knew a couple who loved each other very much. But they got into a battle over his son from a former marriage, who had come to live with them. He was in 10th grade. The wife was feeling the husband was choosing his son over her feelings in disagreements she had with the son. The husband was trying to be the peacemaker between them. Lines were drawn in the sand. I tried to get them to see in counseling, in three years, the boy would be gone off to college. Three years seemed like an eternity to them. The marriage ended in divorce.
Three years later, she still loved her ex-husband. She even said, “you know I really had a pretty good marriage. It’s a shame that we got a divorce.” We can have good spouses and good kids and not see it, because this one area of trouble or irritation is so magnified, that it clouds our view of the entire relationship. Our pride tells us, we should not have to put up with this and we’re going to put our foot down. Our foot comes crashing down, and we do not see it may be our own neck that we are about to break.
We love our wives and our children most, by offering them kindness, forgiveness, graciousness and appreciation. That’s what makes for a great demonstration of love. We often offer these things to those outside the home because our Christian reputation is at stake.(i.e. our pride.) But something is far greater at stake when we refuse to offer these same things at home.
How much kindness is in our voices when we talk at home? How many mistakes can our kids make and know that we will still forgive them? If our daughters told us they were pregnant, how much grace could they expect to receive from us? If our sons didn’t make the team, how much appreciation would they get from us simply for trying.
You know I almost lost my relationship with my 16 year old daughter over her room. The place was a simply a wreck. No matter how many times I told her to clean it, it would not be done to my satisfaction. I took it as a personal battle she was raising against me. This was a sign of passive aggression. One night we just had an all out battle and in that moment, I said, “ the Jesus in me ought to be able to love the Jesus in you. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to work this out.”
I decided then in my heart, I was not going to complain about that room again. I don’t know what she decided. The room never reached my level of perfection. Sometimes I’d just walk be her room and close the door. I won back the heart of my daughter. I also discovered she had a stumbling block to organizing her room without some help. She was not in rebellion against me at all.
She actually was trying, but just couldn’t do it. She simply had too much pride to ask for help. Forward a decade later in her first home. She asked us to come help her get her home together. I didn’t want to spend my vacation doing work. Four days and it was like a miracle. I felt so much love and appreciation flow from my daughter to me. A dad should be there to help.
You love your wife and your children by choosing to be there to help. Every relationship is going to hit some difficulties. Men are we going to be willing to lay down our lives as Christ did for the church or will be sucked back into our selfish nature of thinking, I do not have to put up with this. There is a Christ like way to handle every situation that comes up in our lives. Every situation is God’s opportunity to make us more like Christ, and an opportunity to demonstrate what true love is.
God needs men who are willing to commit themselves to the task. We all know that commitment goes a long way in a football game. Just because you’re down 28 to 0 at half time, does not mean you think the game is over. We may not have been what our families have needed, but it does not mean our families are beyond turning around. Commitment on our part has to be the glue that’s going to make a change.
We also need to lower our expectations of what we should be receiving . When it comes to sex, you may not have a wife who does all you think she should do. You have your fantasies. Is that a reason to feel justified in turning to pornography or other relationships, Are you willing to accept there may be some valid reasons she does not do what you want. Is there the possibility she can’t do what you want without hurting herself. Will you still choose to love and accept her.
Remember the scriptures tell us that there is not a righteous man on earth who always does good. Are you willing to give your spouse a day off. When she speaks to you with that sound in her voice, are you willing to think,” maybe something difficult happened in her day today.” Are you willing to try to find out what it is, before you return with an angry tone of your own in your voice.
Are you willing to give your kids a day off from your perspective of perfection. Are you willing to look at the lawn and see 95% of the lawn done well, without yelling at your son to get that lawnmower back out there and get that area in the back corner. There may be a reason the back corner was not done and it not out of rebellion. Are you willing to put yourself in their place?
Ever thought about getting the mower out and cutting it yourself as a means of showing grace. Or would you choose to insist that everybody does his or her own part when it comes to chores. If we do, we set ourselves up for disappointments. We have such a short time to love our kids. When my daughter was at Shaw High School, she was a cheerleader. Every game at half time she came and said, “Dad Let me have a dollar for some popcorn.” She’ graduated back in 1999. I still go to Shaw games. At half time, I still see her coming up and asking for a dollar. It’s one of my greatest memories of the games.
God places a burden on us a men. God tells us in 1 Peter 3:7 Today's New International Version (TNIV)
7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
How considerate are we being? Are we blocking our prayers? We may be thinking God is to slow in answering, when we are keeping God from being able to allow his healing power to flow through us. The greatest gift we can give our family is a man whose heart is filled with humility seeking to please Christ in all that he does. This is the starting point for loving our wives as Christ loved the church. It’s not something we can do on our own. It’s going to take the power of Jesus Christ. We are going to fail, but we get back up again.
It is a privilege to be the kind of servant that God wants us to be. Before building anything great for God, just be a great servant right in your own home. That’s where you will get your greatest reward.
