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I had a couple or three roads converge in my mind.

I think this problem is known to every man, and certainly every dedicated man of God who is married. It is the conflict between being the God-ordained head of the wife and household and being meek and gentle and a servant. Most men have given up on one or both of these callings.

What do you think was perhaps the biggest misconception about the coming Messiah which caused everybody around Him such difficulty? They were NOT looking for an Isaiah 53 Messiah. They were looking for the One that is still to come, the warrior, the ruling and reigning King of Glory Who marches in and kicks butt and takes names. Then here’s this guy who washes feet, seeks no glory, and gets whipped and nailed to a tree.

We have been enculturated with a view of God that is a despot and Who wills all things to happen the way they happen, Who exercises complete sovereignty over every situation. Then we encounter life situations that make us question the compassion of this all-powerful controlling God. Most of these problems come from bad, or at least incomplete and misguided, teaching about the nature and character of God.

Absent from almost every view of God is the grieving Fatherhood (and  motherhood while we’re on the subject, because God does not lack any good characteristic even if it is found mostly in women) that we find repeatedly in Scripture. I think this absence is a tactic of the enemy to caricature God and cause confusion and despair among us. It might even play on our desire for power to picture a God who constantly exercises complete control over every detail of every life. Because that’s the way we would do it if WE were God.

In our flesh, we really don’t want a God Who grieves. We don’t want God to look down on our plight and grieve. We want Him to wipe out our enemies with a single blow. Wait, no. Let them suffer for a long time with a plague, then wipe ‘em out with fire. After September 11, 2001, we wanted God to go turn Al Qaeda’s land into a beautiful piece of greenish tan glass. We don’t want a God Who grieves. But we fail to see that the God of the universe does grieve and lament and weep – OVER US. Over our stubbornness and pride and self-seeking, self-righteousness, and self-promotion (no matter how we try to hide it behind pretty words).

But we can’t stop there or we will have just substituted one caricature for another. God doesn’t only grieve. He wins. In His incarnation, He won through losing. He gained the victory by suffering the humiliating defeat and shame of death on a cross at the hands of His religious and political enemies. With this suffering, He bought the rights that were lost in our disobedience and idolatry and perversion. He won the keys to sickness, death, hell, and the grave. Jesus is Victor, but He won by dying, dying to His desires to preserve self and life and status. But won life and power and victory for both Himself and for us.

He will execute justice and His righteousness will rule earth once more. And the faithful few will reign with Him. Not today, though. Today He grieves and bears the pain, expressed completely in the body of His Son, Christ Jesus . But as in the days of Noah, His grief will come to an end and He will bring an end to the injustice and He will send His Son to earth again and this time it will not be as a servant. But even in Noah’s day, it was in pain and grief that God wiped out all but a handful of us and started over. Agapeland represented the flood for their children’s bible in this way: God wept. He wept for 40 days and 40 nights and the tears filled the earth. I think that’s pretty accurate.

Now back to you and me and the problem we have as men. We cannot balance the idea of the headship of men with the idea of servanthood. And we are burdened with the same problem that everyone had with this Isaiah 53 Messiah. We just can’t wrap our heads around the idea that we can lead by serving, that we really can be exalted by being humiliated, that there is any truth to being great by being the least.

When I was describing God before (which I know always approaches blasphemy), take note that I never said God did not HOLD all sovereign power over all situations, all things, all of us. I said that He does not exercise that power in every situation. While you and I are tempted to exercise authority in every situation, we must exercise God-like restraint in our relationships, especially with our women.

Let’s look again at the well-known passage concerning husbands: “Men, love your women as Christ loves the church.” How did/does He do that? With iron-fisted rule, demanding immediate attention and respect? He gave Himself up. For her. But also for Himself, “that He might present her back to Himself in all her glory.”

This might be hard to grasp at first glance, but think on this. If you really love your wife, you will want the best for her. And the best for your wife includes her fulfillment in being presented back to you in all her glory. We won’t dive right now into what it means to “sanctify her by the washing of water by the Word of God.” But this washing isn’t going to happen by you shoving the Word down her gullet. There is a lifetime of difficult work involved in you, the man, submitting yourselves under God’s almighty hand, allowing YOUR heart to be washed and purged of its filth and selfishness.

We men must FIRST be filled with His Spirit, which Spirit serves only to exalt the Risen Lord. This Spirit does not seek its own, does not seek attention or approval of men (or women). The character of God’s Spirit is humble. I didn’t say weak. The gentleness from God is strength under control, God’s control as the director of your whole life. Think of John, one of the sons of thunder, who asked Jesus if He wanted him to call down thunder on those who rejected their message. But John learned humility as He saw Jesus suffer and die and rise again. And as John submitted himself, God thundered through him in his writings, especially the Revelation.

Funhouse Mirrors

 

Our warped view of God’s character, prompted by the counterfeits of the enemy, began in the garden with “has God said?” We don’t really pay attention to the way God does things. We view the universe as being for our enjoyment and not God’s. We don’t acknowledge His claims on us or our stuff. Isn’t it strange that we enforce our headship more than He does?

Here is a principle that we would do well to remember:  I am becoming like what I truly love. Henry Scougal put it this way:  “the worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” If you worship a God whose character has been distorted by poor theology and counterfeited representations then the character that you present to your woman will be even more distorted.

Is male headship of the home really God’s way? Yes, it is. If you want to debate that question, take it up with someone else some other time. The question I seek to present is “Are you willing to be the kind of head we see presented in the servant nature of the One and only God-Man ever to walk the earth?” This is the kind of head we are to be – “as Christ loved (and heads) the church.”

Will you (will I?) trust that God’s way is right? If you want to protect self, avoid pain, seek pleasure, you will lose your life in the end. But if you will lose your life for Christ’s sake and for the Gospel you will find it. If we represent the wrong Messiah to our women we do not glorify God. It’s as simple as that. Ask God today to reveal what this means in your daily interaction and conversation with your woman. If you honestly seek this wisdom, He will reveal it.