5 essential elements for marriage
1. Severance (leaving) you have to leave your father and mother physically and emotionally. Your primary allegiance is to each other. You have to become your own family.
2. Permanence- being joined together forever. Permanence.
3. Unity- not uniformity, but unity. Recognizing each unique personality, and each choosing to give their life away for the other person.
4. Intimacy – There shouldn’t be shame or embarrassment, each should be focused on the pleasure or delight of the other person. Not physical intimacy only but shared conversations, joys, sorrows, and triumphs. That is what makes physical intimacy so sweet anyhow.
5. Submission/headship
Husband and wife are put in a hierarchy of roles. It’s not about the person, but the role. God set it up, somebody has to lead, and He knew the best person for the job. Why do women try to buck the system? A man doesn’t lose any value or dignity by being submissive to Christ; Christ doesn’t lose any value by being submissive to the Father. As a woman, the same value is being submissive to my husband (or father) and should submit to him with the same fervor as to Christ. The more that we divert from these roles, the less godly our lives become. When you obey God, something supernatural happens. When you give Him your whole life, trusting Him to do it, He can give you something that is otherworldly. The woman's rights movement is nothing more than a tactic of satan to destroy God's created order.
Headship principles:
Husbands are never commanded to rule over their wives but only to love them.
Headship is never portrayed in Scripture as a matter of self-exaltation or self-satisfaction, it is always other oriented.
Headship is not a power of a superior over an inferior Eph. 4:1-3 Gal 5:22-33. Gentleness is strength under control.
Headship is never to be defined as an issuing of cammands.
Headship does not mean that husbands must make every decision in the house.
Headship is more a responsibility than a right. When a husband feels that responsibility and it is honored by the wife, a sacred trust is established. Chivalry has really been lost in our society, but truly that’s the kind of leadership women are looking for. Headship is an opportunity to lead… with Christ as an example. He led them in regards to them; in teaching, setting an example, spending time with them, delegating authority to them.
Headship don’t give the husband a right to be wrong, he has to be sure he is right with God, communicating with Him before his family, being one with Him.
Headship means loving and caring for one’s wife as himself
Headship means loving and caring for one’s wife as Christ the church.
The closer a husband is to the Lord the more he’ll understand this, the better of a husband he’ll be and realize idealistic marriage comes from intimacy with the Lord. The problems/conflicts come from a lack of true drinks from the well. If your intimacy with the Lord is secure, all will fall into place. “Godliness is what makes you a real man” Jeff Sutton. J
Eph. 5:26-27 Purposeful, pro-active love, encouraging the other to grow in the Lord. A husband’s desire is that the wife would be washed and spotless. He wants to see his family sanctified… realizing that it’s not about not upsetting her, it’s about being the spiritual leader for her that she needs; even if it’s challenging things that need it. Not providing spiritual leadership is much more the failure, than lacking in monetary provision.