Christ Centered Marriage

I listened to Christ Centered Relationships part 2 from Cornerstone Church this morning while on the elliptical machine at the gym. It's a great way to make valuable use of time and engage my mind along with my body.

Lisa Chan did most of the speaking toward women/wives. It talked a lot about Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3, focusing on submitting to our husbands. Her focus was about us being/becoming the godly women we were created to be. To concern ourselves with being obedient to Christ in our lives. It's not about what our spouses are or are not doing. We cannot wait for them to do what they are supposed to do before we do what we are supposed to do. Our call is to do what God wants us to do in spite of what everyone else is doing.

The question is, Is Jesus really our role model (who we are trying to be more like) or is he just a Savior? Do we like what he did for us simply for our benefit or do we want to be more like him? Do we want to demonstrate service and sacrifice like he did or just admire him for it?

Lisa talked cited 1 Peter 3 in reminding us that our actions can have a lot of power. Especially to wives whose husbands are not Christ followers. Being Christ to our husbands can cause changes in them (while at the same time changing us, obviously). Wives need to remember that God knows us and he knows our spouse. He hasn't left us to ourselves, but is working in us and through us.

I was really hit by the call to serve and sacrifice for our spouses. (I think there was a third "s" but I can't remember what it was.) I do want to be a godly wife and to support (maybe that was the third "s"?) my husband and to trust him as the head of our family. God created this system and he knows what he's doing and I ought to honor that. I was thinking about how it's hard to get out of my selfish mindset even in marriage to truly seek to serve Adam. And even harder to purposefully sacrifice myself and my dreams.

We all have these goals for our lives and, when we get married, we bring them with us. At some point there may be friction between what we have always wanted and what is asked of us in marriage. Francis talked about Lisa's dream to be a professional singer and choosing to give that up so that she and her husband could share the same vision of starting a new church. I don't know if I have any dreams that will have to be put aside for my marriage, but I'd like to think that I would be willing to do so. It was a very poignant and challenging message. If you'd like to hear it for yourself, go here and scroll down to the message on 08/10/08.

P.S. The third S was "suffering" (as in Jesus served, suffered, and sacrificed). I don't exactly know that anyone would want to say they "suffer" in their marriage. Might not come across very well...