Imagine that as a Christian your salvation is the free gift and guaranteed peace is the wrapping paper that encloses it!
Here in America, and anywhere you go in the world, we can purchase things in exchange for money. If we want something, we need to purchase it first, right?
This is true
But imagine getting something free of charge!
That would be pretty amazing wouldn’t it? Or imagine getting up to the checkout counter and just as you were about to pay, someone stepped in front of you and gave you a gift card that brought your grocery bill substantially lower or paid for it altogether.
This is what I’m getting at here…
God’s Promise of Peace is Included in the Packaging
What’s the packaging? Well, that would be our salvation.
Imagine that salvation is the gift and peace is the material that makes up the wrapping paper.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. —John 14:27
God gives abundantly and what He gives, He gives freely.
He really doesn’t give as the world gives does he?
The world says, “An eye for an eye. If you want this, you need to pay for it first. You want that? Earn it.”
Not so with God. When you are His child, He gives you His peace not because you earn it. But because you are one of His and He takes good care of His children. Peace is an indication to others that you are not of this world.
What This Peace Means For You as a Wife
That there’s no place for fear
While applying these truths to your marriage, there will be times when you will be tempted to be fearful. Fear is so powerful and plays such a mighty part in a wife’s heart EVERY DAY. So powerful that I have a category titled Fear found in Perils of Marriage.
As powerful as it is, submitting to fear is always a choice and it’s yours. Not only is it your choice but it is your choice EVERY DAY, for me sometimes many times a day. When you begin to incorporate this message into your marriage, and as you get wiser in time, you may begin to be able to track your fights with your husband back to fear.
Things I have found to be fearful of that start the onset of fighting with my husband include:
- growing fearful that my children will not know the Lord (when I don’t nag my husband on the weekends to do devotions like I try to diligently do during the week).
- thinking that I will grow up to be a lonely grandma (if I don’t compel through fighting with my husband to do away with his hobby that I think is immature and taking up too much of his time).
- being afraid that my son is going to cut himself when slicing apples (if I don’t fight to make my husband submit to me and not allow Elijah to cut apples by himself).
Fear is a powerful but there’s something even more powerful
Scripture tells us that perfect love drives out fear…The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18) Can it be that when we understand the breadth and depth of God’s great love for us, fear will vanish? I believe and can attest to this truth! It is truly a mystery! When we find ourselves in the perfect love of Christ, we do not fear because we trust His leading through our husbands.
Fear is connected to love that is connected to trust that is connected to obeying God’s commands
Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.
John 14:15
you can be bold
Bold in what exactly? Your assurance of Christ and His commandments.
When your eyes are open to this truth, I bet that you will begin to understand the importance of obeying God’s commands. Once you begin to understand the most foundational parts of this message and it is that your marriage is set up like the government of God’s kingdom, I hope that you will see how important His commands are.
His command to obey and submit to our husbands is not of this world (of this there is no doubt). It is of God’s kingdom.
If we do not choose kingdom ways, we will not get a kingdom result (of no strife) whether we are Christians or not.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and COURAGEOUS. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9
So what happens when we obey God’s commands to submit to our husbands in all things as unto Him alone?
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
Isaiah 1:19
we will eat the good of the land
“But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
Exodus 23:22
God will begin to move in your husband’s life, rewarding you for your allegiance to Him (your husband, yes, but your obedience is really as unto Christ!!)
Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
John 8:51
We will never see death
This doesn’t mean death in the physical realm, it means death in the spiritual realm. Keeping God’s decrees means that we can be confident in going to heaven to be with Him one day.
I can get all of that?!
I mean, sign me up! These rewards for obeying God’s commands make me want to run towards obedience, how about you? And this is the joy we find in obeying God, dear Sister, when we find joy in obeying His word because we see that it yields a fruitful harvest.
What is the harvest? Peace in your home. The fighting with your husband will come to a screeching halt almost altogether when you obey God’s commandments and be bold that they will be effective even when it is too soon to tell.
This is not using God to get what we want, it is seeing that His ways are better than our own!
You are a daughter of the Highest God, and peace is included in the packaging.
We may not always see the fruits of our obedience right away, but just as when we plant the garden, we don’t yield produce right away either. It is a process and it takes time for the roots of the seeds we plant to go deep enough to produce anything that we can see. The peace that is included in the packaging of your salvation will be what draws your husband to the Lord (whether he is saved or unsaved) as 1 Peter 3:1 tells us …they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,
This drawing of your husband’s heart to the Heavenly Father happens when you as a wife find peace in God’s perfect love. It is at this point that the fighting gets quite enough or stops altogether and your husband can hear God’s voice speaking to Him.