A Home, Not A House

Do you live in a house or a home? Our Dad longs to change your house into a home. He created it for good. Satan intends it for heartbreaking, devastating evil. Although it may seem like Satan is ahead on points, God's catching all his blows on His gloves and will KO him in the last round. This fight is fixed! Meanwhile, how do we live till Jesus comes?

Since it's Valentine's month, let's examine one author's list of six areas labeled marital skirmish and see how Jesus can neuter skirmishes.

1. Moodiness—a Complaining Attitude

When is the last time you encountered a salesperson who had an "attitude?" Irritating isn't it? Have you thanked the Lord that your spouse is not this way? What a blessing it is when your home is a haven, a place of security where everyone's loved and appreciated. You say, "This doesn't describe my home." Well, read on.

How would it feel to be greeted with a hug and a kiss when each of you gets home? How would it feel to know that your family respects you? This is what homecoming would be like for everyone in your "homehold" if each member of the family trusted Christ to express His life through them. Incredible as it may seem, Christ is more than our Savior who takes us to heaven. He is Life to be expressed through us to one another. You may say, "Bill, I'm only one person. What can I do? My family doesn't let Christ live through them." Hey, you're the one who is reading this. If you don't lead out in letting the Holy Spirit of Jesus live through you to love your family, who will? Winning them over is His job, but He wants a vessel through whom He can reveal himself and that's where you come in.

2. & 3. Sloppy Habits of Dress/Housekeeping; Physical Appearance, Especially Weight

The impression spouses get in some homes as they leave for work isn't good. Hair awry toward all points on the compass, a kiss goodbye with unbrushed teeth, dirty dishes from last night, unshaven, TV blaring, soiled table top or a mere lump under the covers.

Some spouses go to an office where a coworker looks clean, smells delightful, builds them up, tells them how great it must be to be married to them…. You get the picture. Ideally, we must both determine to compete now…before an "incident" occurs. One of our best antidotes against spousal-temptation is to work at being desirable and making home a haven from the world.

Maybe a wife is weary of feeling that she has more than her share of the responsibility. Perhaps a guy at her office notices that she seems preoccupied and encourages her to share with him, that he "wants to help." Perhaps she misreads his interest as altruism when in fact it's designed to seduce her. The world is full of such leaches and husbands must help to protect their wives from them. Listen to her. Do something about her concerns, be attentive, tender, spend time with her, lend a helping hand, enthusiastically share in the housework and other family responsibilities. Someone said, "When both spouses work outside the home, there is not ?women's work', there's just work." Brother, wake up!

Or perhaps household or professional responsibilities leave so little time for personal care, home care, and each other care that office romances develop as a diversion from the rat race. Question: If a husband and wife each trust Christ to express His life toward one another will this defuse such problems? Of course.

We must remember that our spouses want to be proud of us like they were when we were dating. There's nothing wrong with that. Just because we're married is no reason to stop watching how we look, smell, behave, etc. Jesus through us will do this till we eject from our earthsuit.

4. Frequency of Sex

One of our famous pollsters, Ann Landers, asked her readers to respond to this question: Would you be content to be held and treated tenderly and forget the sex? Over 90,000 women responded. 72% said, "Yes!" Of the 50,000 men who responded 50,000 said, "No Way!" (That's an exaggeration. It was only 49,999.)

God is the One who invented marital sex. He could have had us reproduce the species by eating broccoli. But, He designed sex to be a pleasurable intimacy for both spouses. Why then are so many wives not enjoying marital sex as our Creator intended? I believe it's because many feel exploited and used—a huge turnoff. Such a wife begins to feel like a piece of equipment—like a dishwasher or a sweeper that's used when needed, then ignored. She resents it that the only time her husband pays attention to her is when he wants sex. Such husbands are takers, not givers. They make their wives vulnerable for an affair. Christ through us will focus on meeting our spouse's needs, not using them to satisfy ours.

On the other hand, some caring, tender, attentive husbands have wives who go to extremes to avoid intimacy, even studying the Bible till midnight to avoid it. Great day, how could a husband interrupt her Bible study! Sweet Sister, your husband lives in a world teeming with pornography and women who look good, smell good, are coifed, well-dressed, and lavish praise upon unfulfilled husbands. Wake up! Christ as life will enable you to offer sexual intimacy as a ministry to your husband. It meets a God-given need.

5. Public, Verbal Attacks

They say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," but millions of women and men bear festering, open sores inflicted by words. In a public venue the devastating effect this produces is magnified on the objects of such hostility.

Some adults excuse their ugly behavior toward their children with, "Oh, kids are resilient. They'll get over it." No, the data prove that the emotional/behavioral pain usually intensifies. Such wounds penetrate the very soul of the person by adulthood. Embracing our identity in Christ is God's healing balm.

6. Resolving Conflicts

Settling conflicts will change dramatically when partners allow Christ to live through them. Think about His gentleness, tact, wisdom, love, etc. These are in you because He is in you. This is not so much to be felt or understood as believed and acted upon. Jesus is your gentleness; Jesus is your patience, etc. Tapping into this amazing Source is normal Christian living.

Oh, my dear friend, Jesus is God's Change Agent. You must give up trying to change via your own strength and embrace Christ's living through you. Don't wait to begin till wounding words are behind your teeth ready to be spit out. You start like the NASCAR racers as they cruise with the pack in the pre-race laps. They weave back and forth to warm up their tires before the green flag comes down. The principle holds for you. You must:

• Trust Christ to express life through you.
• Use the same faith to believe that Jesus is your life that you use to believe Jesus is your Savior.
• Faith is simply acting like (living like) God tells the truth.Act like Jesus is living through you, not by feel, but by faith.
• Practice in the easy part of the "race" before taking the green flag. Where is this? It's brushing your teeth, driving your car, walking the dog, etc. Practicing in these mundane things will "warm up your tires" for the green flag.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!"