22-03-2020
Before marriage, ladies, choose your husbands carefully. If you choose a guy whom you cannot respect or be your best friend, you will have a problem. After marriage, don't expect to change your husbands. So choose carefully before marriage.
Proverbs 31:10-31 New International Version (NIV)
Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character
10 [a]A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
Always look to Proverbs 31. If you understand your role as a wife and a mother, you'll realise that you have a very onerous task. Through discussions and advise, you will not have any problems with submissions because your husband will make decisions based on the advice you give your husband. Do not manipulate. Be careful of manipulation. Whenever disagreement arises, God's order is that the man wears the trousers in the family.
Husbands, because of your propensity for preoccupation with careers and presumption that certain things are your right, men, we always have a lot of problems dealing with our wives and children. Very often the harshness and discipline and the double standards that we exercise is a manifestation of our fear and vicarious living that we are indulging in. Husbands, you know yourselves where you are lacking.
Children, obey your remembers. Always remember, only if you have hindsight in everything. Well, your parents do. Your parents have gone through it. That is why they tend to nag you a bit. But they nag you a bit because they love you and they want the best for you. And if you ignore their advice and their plans for you, very often it works out to your detriment.
We are not to curry favour. We are to work with integrity and loyalty because we have two forms of reward. Firstly, we are rewarded by our earthly masters. Secondly, we are rewarded by God who sees everything. So, employees, don't try to be too smart for your own good.
James 5:4 New International Version (NIV)
4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.
Masters, on the other hand, act fairly. If you withhold rightful remuneration to your workers, the justice that calls out from the earth reaches the ears of heaven. No doubt there's differing values of the workers' contribution. Workers tend to think too much of their contribution. Bosses tend to think too little of their contribution. Here we need to strike a balance. However, what is important is that the attitude and treatment towards employees must be right. At the end of the day, you have a master also.
Devote yourselves to prayer. We need to pray. That is without exception. The practical issues of time, place, tongues and human weakness need to be dealt with. We must realise we have to have time to pray each day to commune with God. This is when you speak to God. When you speak to God, God speaks to to you. All of us need to spend time daily and regularly to pray. Find for yourselves a place where you can commune with God in privacy. Do we pray only in tongues or with understanding? All these practical issues have a lot to do with human weakness. Sometimes we are so rush for time that we forget to pray. Or we tend to be lazy and we just indulge in praying in tongues without praying intelligently. Praying intelligently is important because it develops spiritual mentality. Praying in tongues is wonderful; it uplifts us spiritually; there are many things we do not know how to pray and praying in tongues helps a lot. If you only pray in tongues, yes, your spirit man benefits but your mind and your heart do not. While we live on earth, the soul part of us--our minds and our hearts--needs to develop and mature. Therefore, in praying intelligently, we are engaging God in a conversation and in a discussion. In so doing, you will find that you learn a lot. You learn and develop your spiritual understanding. While it is important to pray in tongues, it is equally important to pray intelligently and in so doing, it develops our spiritual understanding and our spiritual mind.
In praying corporately, we have theology vs practice vs technology. The theology of corporate prayer is very simple: God is everywhere. God hears you where ever you are. God is timeless. The practice of coming together at a particular fixed time to pray helps to overcome the human weakness of being lazy or not being able to pray. However, all these can be overcome with the use of modern technology. With Zoom, now we can meet in the comfort of your home without going through the traffic jams every day. Think about it. Sometimes, due to our own human weakness, we tend to take the easy way out. We try to make up for our ignorance and laziness by just giving an item of prayer. Eg. Let's pray for the nation. You start praying in tongues and you get everybody to pray in tongues as well. By itself, this is not wrong. But to you as a prayer leader, may I humbly suggest that you are not doing the body of Christ any favour if you lead in prayers like this. You need to be aware of what's happening in the country and you need to be able to explain what is happening to the country to the body of Christ so that they can pray intelligently, with wisdom and faith so that when God answers, they will know that their prayers have been answered. As prayer leaders, we have tremendous responsibility in how we lead in prayer. If we understand and explain to the body of Christ what we are praying about, it builds up faith because when we pray intelligently and we know what we are praying for and the Spirit of God leads us in our undertanding and in our mental development and when we see how God answers, we mature and develop in our faith.
We need to act with urgency. There is a need for new proactive strategies for evangelism. The old ways sometimes do not work anymore and we will fail miserably. It's not because the gospel is irrelevant; it's because we engage irrelevant means. There is a lot of self-defeating practices being exercised by our church. We do not think how we do church. You spend so much time in church--and this is to be commended--but do you have enough time to spend with your family and children, and spend time with your friends to build friendships with them and bring them to Christ so that you earn the right to speak into their lives? Do you even have time for yourself to do quiet time and commune with God? We need a paradigm shift. We need to preach the gospel in an effective manner. We need to understand where your friend is coming from and be more sensitive. We are there to save souls. We need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and to the person that we are brining the message to.
In conclusion, the reason why we do the Book of Colossians is for us to be better disciples. In this movement control order period, this is a very good time to develop our discipleship. How can we be helpful and compassionate to our neighbours? How can we pray for our country? If the church of God does not step up to the plate and hit the home run, we will end up losing the game.
RELATED:
A Holy People in the Kingdom of Light (Colossians 1:1-14)
The Supremacy of Christ (Colossians 1:15-23)
How Should We Serve Christ (Colossians 1:24-2:5)
Completeness in Christ (Colossians 2:6-15)
Freedom in Christ (Colossians 2:16-23) The Attack on a Christ Centred Life
Mentality in Christ (Colossians 3:1-17)
Our Roles in Christ (Colossians 3:18-4:6)
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