2015 Volume Two

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In Hot Pursuit... Of Your Spouse By Peggy Harvey As a little girl I dreamt the fairy tale romances of my knight in shining armor coming to rescue me and prince charming begging my hand in marriage. And I’m pretty certain that many other girls shared these dreams, because in every female heart is a longing to be swept off our feet and pursued relentlessly. Yet the longing to be pursued isn’t a fairy tale nor that of just a little girl. Child or adult, the female heart longs to be pursued. It is a longing, however, that extends beyond courtship and the marriage altar. There is an unfortunate myth today that says once a man is married, he no longer has to pursue his wife. Once the man has won the heart of his beloved, it is enough. It is a myth that stems, I believe, from men’s failure to embrace their Scriptural, God-given responsibility as husbands and their inability to understand the deep needs of a woman’s heart. In the heart of every woman is a need to be pursued, valued and cherished.
A need to be led to the person of Christ, through the man God has placed in her life. But men struggle with this. Consequently, men are present physically, but detached emotionally and spiritually, and women feel that their husbands don’t value or cherish them. Sadly, while women have the companionship of their husbands, they are lonely. Their lonely heart grieves the absence of their husband’s emotional attentiveness and spiritual leadership. So how can this be fi xed? Thankfully, the Bible tells men how to do this. Bearing in mind that “pursue” is the word in question, it leads to another signifi cant word: covenant. God has always extended relationship with His creation in the form of covenant because He is relationally threein-one, an eternal covenantal community within Himself. It is the never-ending joy that comes from eternally living in this kind of relationship that was a primary motive behind why God created us - in order that we would share in what He (the Trinity) has experienced forever. God is love, and as a true and selfl ess “lover”, rather than hoarding the joy that comes from intimate covenant relationship, He desires and chooses instead to share it with us. Thus, bearing in mind the covenant relationship, men are to love their wives sacrifi cially. Ephesians 5:22-27 tells us that as Christ is the head of the church, His bride, so too the husband is the head of the marriage relationship, and as the head he is responsible to one day present his bride as holy and blameless before God. This means that just as Christ died for us, the husband dies to himself in order that his bride might live in the joy for which she was created to experience. That is pure love - “pursuit” love. As the husband responds to God’s love, so too the wife responds to the love of the husband, and the covenantal cycle of love goes on and on and on in the form of continual reciprocity. That is what God intended anyway when He introduced Adam to his perfect “suitable helper” (Gen. 2:18, NASB). But the cycle was broken by sin, and therefore both sides of the marriage cycle (husband and wife) can cause a disruption in the covenantal love cycle. When the pursuit is stopped from either end the cycle of continuous reciprocity is broken, and the selfi shness of humankind starts to question the other in the covenant, which usually causes each partner to start focusing on their own needs that are not being met, instead of focusing on the needs of their partner. Consequently, the cycle of covenantal love now stopped, eventually husband and wife retreat into themselves and “wait for” rather than “chase after”, the other. The intended cycle can only be fi xed when one person in the relationship unselfi shly approaches the other in repentance and immediately demonstrates their spirit of repentance by focusing on the needs of the other. But the fi rst responsibility for this begins with the husband, because God said so. However, it doesn’t end with the husband. Even if the husband is negligent in his responsibility, the wife should pursue her husband just as God pursued us in giving us the gift of His Son, though we don’t deserve Him. Secondly, men are to lead spiritually. Ephesians 5:25- 27 says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot
Page 1 and 2: 2015 Volume Two ON MARRIAGE
Page 4: EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Michelle Danko
Page 7 and 8: BIBLICALLY, WHO’S IN CHARGE?.....
Page 9 and 10: Submission IS NOT Being Submissive
Page 11 and 12: to shield his wife and family from
Page 13 and 14: Impressing Kids in the Ways of God
Page 15 and 16: Christi shared that she desires for
Page 17 and 18: These words have been used so often
Page 19 and 20: ody, but they feed and care for the
Page 21 and 22: “Having it All” But At What Pri
Page 23 and 24: effectively. It is imperative to re
Page 25 and 26: When “Just Saying No” is Danger
Page 27 and 28: temptation is never far away. Rejec
Page 29 and 30: Robert Bakke: Life With God at Full
Page 31 and 32: are playing to the “itching ears
Page 33 and 34: tithes and in the compensation that
Page 35 and 36: enter the ministry if the pay was b
Page 37: of God. AS for the scriptures I tho
Page 41 and 42: Davey Hamilton Live by God, Live Ha
Page 43 and 44: everyone. He recalls confessing tha
Page 45 and 46: the pursuing in a relationship? Wel
Page 47 and 48: the man and the woman marry, as wel
Page 49 and 50: More Than a Bookstore! Located in B
Page 51 and 52: Faith Filled Family asked the group
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Page 55 and 56: in your relationship, it will benef
Page 57 and 58: great at home, a change in pace, or
Page 59 and 60: In January 2010 in East Texas, the
Page 61 and 62: eginning. There will never be a mom
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Page 68 and 69: Worship Changes Everything With Dar
Page 70 and 71: oldly to his throne, to just sit, a
Page 72 and 73: At times, I could feel the prayers
Page 74 and 75: Worship And Mission By Darlene Zsch
Page 76 and 77: BIBLICALLY, Who Is in Charge? By Ta
Page 78 and 79: needs to take control. One expressi
Page 80 and 81: only that, but there will also be a
Page 82 and 83: Character Requiring the Finess of a
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Page 86 and 87: Fait Gi Faith Filled Family had the
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society change. Now many people wil
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2015 Volume Two

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