²¹ And fur­ther, sub­mit to one another out of rev­er­ence for Christ.²² For wives, this means sub­mit to your hus­bands as to the Lord. ²³ For a hus­band is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Sav­ior of his body, the church. ²⁴ As the church sub­mits to Christ, so you wives should sub­mit to your hus­bands in everything.

²⁵ For hus­bands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her ²⁶ to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleans­ing of God’s word. ²⁷ He did this to present her to him­self as a glo­ri­ous church with­out a spot or wrin­kle or any other blem­ish. Instead, she will be holy and with­out fault. ²⁸ In the same way, hus­bands ought to love their wives as they love their own bod­ies. For a man who loves his wife actu­ally shows love for him­self. ²⁹ No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. ³⁰ And we are mem­bers of his body.

³¹ As the Scrip­tures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” ³² This is a great mys­tery, but it is an illus­tra­tion of the way Christ and the church are one. ³³ So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves him­self, and the wife must respect her husband.

Rela­tion­ships

I’ve preached a four part series on this pas­sage alone. You’d think I’d break this up into a week’s worth of Oil Changes. And yet, here I am, putting it all in one day’s devotional.

I’m doing it inten­tion­ally. I want us to focus on the over­all point of this pas­sage: we are called to sub­mit to one another. To serve each other. To love one another. To put those around us ahead of ourselves.

Look, it’s not rocket sci­ence. God’s ways are dif­fer­ent than the world’s ways. At times, his ways will offend the world. How can we expect it to not offend? God talks about dying to our own desires. To giv­ing away our lives for the sake of his pur­pose. Of trust­ing him and thank­ing him even when we expe­ri­ence tri­als and struggles.

It takes faith to do things God’s way. Extreme faith. And so, yes, those who have no faith will be offended by God’s ways. No kidding.

And I believe that’s why peo­ple get all bent out of shape when it comes to rela­tion­ships. Espe­cially to the role of hus­bands and wives. Of course, it doesn’t help when Chris­tians teach things that are sim­ply not in the Bible. But, that’s for another day.

Again, the bot­tom line is this: we are called to sub­mit first to God, and sec­ond to each other. If you’re not doing that, you’re miss­ing the point completely.

My prayer: Lord, you’ve called me to sub­mit to my fam­ily. To serve them. To place the needs of my wife and my chil­dren ahead of my own. To love them uncon­di­tion­ally. To give of myself for their sake. Help me to do that each and every day. And not just for them. Help me to serve each and every per­son you bring across my path. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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¹⁵ So be care­ful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. ¹⁶ Make the most of every oppor­tu­nity in these evil days. ¹⁷ Don’t act thought­lessly, but under­stand what the Lord wants you to do. ¹⁸ Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, ¹⁹ singing psalms and hymns and spir­i­tual songs among your­selves, and mak­ing music to the Lord in your hearts. ²⁰ And give thanks for every­thing to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Give Thanks For Everything

I really debated over which direc­tion to go with today’s Oil Change. There are two incred­i­ble state­ments in this pas­sage, both wor­thy of fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion. The first is found in verse 16: “Make the most of every oppor­tu­nity …” Wow. I can only imag­ine how effec­tive God’s peo­ple would be if we took that verse to heart. If each of us truly made the most of every expe­ri­ence we had. Rather than give a half-hearted effort to some things, imag­ine if we gave it our all in every­thing. What a challenge.

The sec­ond verse that hits me hard is verse 20: “Give thanks for every­thing.” Every­thing? I’m sure Paul must have made a typo in this pas­sage. I mean, I can under­stand thank­ing God for all the good things that he does, but doesn’t every­thing also mean thank­ing God for the bad things? Isn’t that a lot to ask? Is it even realistic?

When my daugh­ter passed away, I didn’t thank God for let­ting her die. It wasn’t like I stopped and said, “Hey God, that was pretty cool!” So, how can Paul sug­gest that we thank God for everything?

Here’s how. While I didn’t thank God for allow­ing my daugh­ter to die, I did thank God for being there with me through the pain of her death. I thanked God for being one whom I could trust in. A God who was there, who under­stood my pain, who could take every sit­u­a­tion and allow good to come from it if I sim­ply trusted him.

And so, in that way, I do believe that we can thank God for every­thing. Regard­less of what you’re fac­ing today, thank God. Thank him for being some­one you can trust in. Some­one who will give you strength when you feel weak. Some­one who will take every sit­u­a­tion and cause good to come from it. IF we will trust him.

My prayer: Lord, thank you that when I am weak, I find strength in you. When I feel like giv­ing up, I can turn to you and you will carry me. Yes, I can thank you in every sit­u­a­tion. Even when I’m going through some­thing I don’t under­stand nor want to expe­ri­ence, I can still thank you for lov­ing me and being with me. So, thank you. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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³ Let there be no sex­ual immoral­ity, impu­rity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s peo­ple. ⁴ Obscene sto­ries, fool­ish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thank­ful­ness to God. ⁵ You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy per­son will inherit the King­dom of Christ and of God. For a greedy per­son is an idol­ater, wor­ship­ing the things of this world.

⁶ Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who dis­obey him. ⁷ Don’t par­tic­i­pate in the things these peo­ple do. ⁸ For once you were full of dark­ness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as peo­ple of light! ⁹ For this light within you pro­duces only what is good and right and true.

¹⁰ Care­fully deter­mine what pleases the Lord. ¹¹ Take no part in the worth­less deeds of evil and dark­ness; instead, expose them. ¹² It is shame­ful even to talk about the things that ungodly peo­ple do in secret. ¹³ But their evil inten­tions will be exposed when the light shines on them, ¹⁴ for the light makes every­thing vis­i­ble. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Live As Peo­ple of Light

Well, isn’t this a roman­tic verse for Valentine’s Day!

Isn’t it inter­est­ing that we like to zero in on things like sex­ual immoral­ity, impu­rity, and greed, and yet we often ignore things like obscene sto­ries, fool­ish talk, and coarse jokes?

It’s why I’m not a big fan of mak­ing “sin lists.” When­ever we do that, we tend to cat­e­go­rize sin into “big sins” and “lit­tle sins.” And yet, the Bible is clear: sin is sin. There are no levels.

I think all of the things listed here should be con­sid­ered. But even more so, it’s the heart behind them. Live as peo­ple of the light. In other words, live as peo­ple who have dis­cov­ered a new mes­sage: the mes­sage of Grace. That God loves us uncon­di­tion­ally and he has called us to some­thing greater. Some­thing more.

Ahhh, but I can hear some of you already. Doesn’t this pas­sage sug­gest that peo­ple who break the listed sins will not go to Heaven? Actu­ally, no, it doesn’t say that. Look care­fully at the pas­sage. It says that peo­ple who do such things will not inherit the king­dom of Christ and of God.

So, what IS the king­dom of Christ and God. Well, Jesus made it clear. It’s liv­ing in this world and yet not being of this world. It’s see­ing your­self as part of another king­dom. It’s cre­at­ing a new cul­ture within the cul­ture that you live. A cul­ture that declares “God’s way is bet­ter than my way.” It’s a cul­ture that believes if you give up your life, you’ll dis­cover a life worth liv­ing. If you give, you’ll receive. If you’re first, you’ll be last. To be great, you must serve.

You can’t “inherit” that king­dom (in other words, expe­ri­ence it) and still live for your­self. And if you look closely at the things listed, that’s exactly what they are: things you do when you’re liv­ing for your­self instead of sac­ri­fic­ing your desires and wants for oth­ers and for God.

So, which king­dom are you going to experience?

My prayer: Lord, help me to not fall into the trap of cat­e­go­riz­ing sin. When I do that, I min­i­mize some sins. That’s never good. At the same time, help me to truly under­stand what it means to live in your king­dom. To inherit it. To live a life that is truly dif­fer­ent that the life offered by the world. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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