New Start 15 kicks off today! Check out the New Start 15 Reading PLAN that begins today, 5 days a week for 3 weeks = 15. Take a look at the Suggested Resources, and follow along in the blog hop for insights about each day’s passage from our contributors around the United States. Today, Angela Mackey, Heather Riggleman, and Kathy Howard share from Psalm 15.
Marriage Monday
It’s easier to act like a sinful woman than a holy wife. After all, it’s our nature. You’ve probably heard the excuse, “I’m just that way.” Maybe you’ve even used it. I’d love to say I never have, but then I’d be acting like a … sinful woman! When overwhelmed by our habits of humanness, we sometimes excuse ourselves by claiming we were born that way.
The truth is, though we were born sinful and married life is hard, it’s possible to be a holy wife. God doesn’t call us to a purpose He doesn’t empower us to reach.
Blending our life with another puts the squeeze to our selfish ways and applies pressure to our independence. Sin erupts unannounced, triggered by offenses ranging from boxers on the floor to broken trust. As we learn to serve, uplift, and follow, we struggle with wanting to wash the feet of the man in our lives, let alone his dirty briefs! Still, holiness grows in the soil of humility, sown in furrows made by exercising daily duties, bearing fruit after seasons of tending. God empowers the women of faith He calls to His purpose of holy living.
Having a husband helps us practice the habits of holiness.
How can a sinful woman be a holy wife?
- God knows how we are made (Psalm 103:14)
- God longs to forgive our sinful ways (1 John 1:9)
- God makes our old ways new (2 Corinthians 5:17)
- God gives us His Spirit to help us (Romans 8:26-27)
- God draws us to Him when we are clean (Psalm 15:1-5)
A wife is concerned about many earthly things, household things, relational things, emotional things, physical things. It’s easy to set our minds on the stuff of life, but such preoccupation stunts our growth in godliness. To be a holy wife who treats her husband in a godly way, our old self must be forgiven and changed, and we need God’s Spirit to help us walk by God’s truth. It’s not easy to be like Jesus in this world; only God’s Spirit and His word make a godly walk possible.
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God … Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Romans 8:6-9a)
On this Marriage Monday, I pray we will make a godly marriage part of our commitment in New Start 15, because, “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6) It’s not just a reasonable hope, but an expectation for all who are “in Christ.”
God empowers us to live the holy life He calls us to. Without Him, it would be impossible. If a woman happens to be married, He does the divine work of enabling her to grow in godliness while caught up in the miracle of two becoming one.
Tomorrow Kathy Howard takes #NewStart15 to the book of 2 Timothy.
Julie, thank you for these wise and encouraging words about being the holy wife God desires us to be!
I’m praying that our pursuit of holiness overflows into the private places of our homes and relationships in New Start 15!