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Today I have my wife with me to share a short testimony of our relationship and following
Jesus and how we have chosen to follow Jesus. We
want to read this passage to you, actually, my wife is going to read it and it's If you
want to look Ephesians Chapter 5 verses 22-25 and you can read it now. "Wives submit to
your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife,
as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word."
This verse specifically shows how the husbands must FIRST be in submission to Jesus,
and we know that Jesus does not FORCE of manipulate ANYBODY to follow Him,
and the Holy Spirit who Jesus gives to His spirits is NOT a manipulating Spirit.
He doesn't force us. We can continue in sin if we want, and reject Jesus if we want.
He won't force us to do anything. But WILLINGLY we have to lay down our lives
to follow Jesus and when we get married, we lay down our lives for each other. We become
one flesh and we become one. And we willingly choose to love each other,
and willingly choose to serve Jesus together. As Jesus NEVER manipulated me or forced me
to follow Him, I cannot manipulate my wife or force her.
I have to willingly choose to follow Jesus, and my wife has to willingly choose to follow
me as I am following Jesus. So right now you can share about how that
has been in our relationship and some of just the strife people have given
us and stuff like that. (Marilee) Well, first of all I can't give
Andy any credit for the transformation that is going on in my life daily,
I can only give credit to Jesus Christ for that and that's been an incredible journey,
and, ya, like I said I can't give Andy any credit or any man credit for that matter.
Jesus is the only one who can change the heart and transform your mind into the likeness
of Him. And so I keep my eyes on Jesus daily,
and even then you know I always take everything I hear that I read to Jesus even if it's from
Andy, and I love my husband very much and I choose
to submit to him as a wife. One of my biggest verses,
chapters is in Proverbs 31 that talks about the virtues of a woman
and that's been definitely a goal of mine to continue to be a more of a godly woman,
as in the woman portrayed in Proverbs 31. And definitely part of that is being in full
submission to her husband as the husband is the head of the relationship
and as Christ is the head of the husband. So it's been difficult because a lot of people
think that I am just being controlled by Andy when in fact JESUS is the one who is controlling
my life, and I can't give credit to any man for that
but I just want to keep seeking Jesus and keep my eyes on Him,
and be the woman of God that He has made me, who fears Jesus and who continues to just
reach out to peoples in love and encouragement and,
but to keep loving my husband and keep encouraging him by seeking Jesus with Him. (Andy) Amen.
And it is our goal together to be able to serve Jesus and give HIM the glory.
And I need to be in submission to Jesus and led by His Spirit.
There is a verse that says, if we are led by the Spirit,
we do NOT gratify the desires of the flesh, and so if I am being led by the Holy Spirit
and choosing to follow Jesus with all my heart, I am doing it willfully. The Holy Spirit is
not forcing me, and in the same exact way, wives nee to submit to their husbands out
of LOVE because they love Jesus and they love their husbands.
So we want to encourage you together to serve Jesus, together with other people,
and that Jesus will NEVER force you to follow Him.
We need to willfully lay down our lives to follow Jesus.
May the grace of Jesus be with you.