“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” – Ephesians 5:22-24

It’s good, on a regular basis, to review what the Bible actually says about the roles in a household. Today, let’s consider the wife’s place. But first, here’s the biblical bottom line in understanding marital roles: men and women are equal under God in every way. They are equal in importance, in standing, in significance, in privilege, and in worth. But here is the mistake often made: equality does not require or mean sameness. That is the error of the world that we use the Word of God to displace.

God’s Word instructs wives to submit to their husbands. The Greek word for submit is hupotasso. It was originally a military term. It means to subject or to subordinate yourself. The idea is to place yourself under. No one forces submission. It is a willing choice that a godly woman makes as unto Christ. It’s a voluntary commitment followed by a regular practice of yielding to her own husband.

Yield! This is the Word of the Lord. A wife’s place is to yield to her husband. If a collision is about to take place, if two people are trying to go at opposite angles, wives—your responsibility under God—is to yield at that point of conflict so it doesn’t destroy your marriage.

Here’s how John Piper and Wayne Grudem summarize submission in their great book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. “Submission refers to a wife’s divine calling to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through, according to her gifts. It is not an absolute surrender of her will. Rather, we speak of her disposition to yield to her husband’s guidance and her inclination to follow his leadership. Christ is her absolute Authority, not the husband.”

The most important question (often not even asked) that a woman should answer before saying “yes” to a marriage proposal is, “Am I willing to yield to this man as Christ’s representative in my life for the rest of my life?” Failure to settle this question doesn’t invalidate your marriage—it just means that you may be in for a much harder experience in voluntarily yielding to your husband out of obedience to Christ. If that’s your situation, you will need to depend continuously on Christ for wisdom and strength as you live for Him.

Journal

How does the wife’s place as the designated yielder match and illustrate the role of the church as designated yielder in her relationship with Christ?

Prayer

Father, the place of a wife is a high calling from You to serve her husband and children out of the strength she gains from You. Help those of us who are wives to continually look to You for wisdom in speaking, in acting, and in yielding when each of these is part of our role in marriage. Thank You for making our place clear, even though it is a challenge for us. It simply reminds us continually how much we must rely on Your help. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ⁷Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.” – Proverbs 3:5-8

On most days, if you spend time with me, at some point you will hear me say, “I trust the Lord in everything.” Now, when I say this, I’m not trying to impress anyone else or even expect that anyone else will necessarily notice. I’m talking to myself. I’m reminding myself that part of loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength gets down to the very practical matter of trusting Him constantly, continuously, and consciously. Like, every day, all day. I’m practicing the discipline required to not lean on my own understanding and to actively acknowledge the Lord in all my ways. There isn’t anything that fits outside of everything, and I want to trust the Lord in everything!

Now, the opening phrase of Proverbs 3:5 is “Trust in the Lord.” The most important word in that phrase is not trust (even though it’s the verb). Likewise, the most important word in my daily phrase, “I trust the Lord in everything,” isn’t trust either. The crucial, weighty word in both those phrases is Lord. You see, if I’m trying to have a robust and powerful trust in a tiny, pretty much unable and weak God who needs to be pumped up by my trust, I’ve got nothing. But even if the best I can muster up is a mustard seed of trust and faith in the awesome (the only truly correct use for this adjective) God of the universe, then I’ve got something going on!

Trusting the Lord isn’t hard as long as you are scoped into the Lord you trust. When the concern shifts to trying to measure the power, strength, or endurance of your trust itself, you’re already in trouble. But when your attention is daily turned to Him, seeking to know Him better and better, eager to worship Him and be with others who want to worship Him, trusting becomes part of the response.

I love my grandchildren. They trust me. They don’t waste any time wondering if their trust in me is big enough—they just trust because they know me. I’m their grandpa! I trust the Lord in everything. I know that trust isn’t much on its own some days. But that’s OK—because I’m trusting the Lord in everything. And that’s who really matters! —James MacDonald

Journal

How do I remind myself of the most important reasons I live the life I live?

What does it mean to me to trust the Lord? How does that look?

Prayer

Father, I trust You in everything! Help me in those times when I notice just how weak and insignificant my trust is! I welcome You into every corner of my life, Lord, so that no matter where I am and what I am doing, behind it all I am trusting You in everything. For You alone are worthy of my trust. In Jesus’ trustworthy name, Amen.

“The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” —Mark 12:31-33

I did not feel loved in the church that I grew up in. Not at all. Oh, there might have been one or two exceptions. But most of the time, I felt inspected, I felt measured, I felt judged, I felt sometimes excluded, but I did not feel loved in the church when I was young. I could quote verses like, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35), but I wasn’t seeing it or feeling it. Now before you conclude I’m piling on my childhood church, let me confess they didn’t get a lot of love from me either.

It took me a lot of years—I mean, I learned to love God, I learned to love God’s Word, but I did not learn how to love people in the church that I grew up in. It doesn’t surprise me that there are many people that feel that way. Now, that is an awful tragedy.

Jesus says this is like the big deal—loving one another. You’ve got to have this! It’s a rough world out there. Church has got to be a place where I come where I feel loved by people with authentic love.

I want to declare this. Our church is going hard after loving one another. You are loved here—not perfectly, but permanently you are loved here. Not 100% faithfully, okay, because we’re all sinners, but you are loved fervently here. We want Jesus’ words to come true and be true among us! I believe with all of my heart, we have to embrace this as job-number-one, horizontally speaking. People need to see and they need to experience directly the way we love one another! That’s the first step in the second part of the great commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself.

When Jesus was like, “I’m leaving here via the cross in ten more minutes,” He added, “Here’s what I really want you to do: Love one another.”
—James MacDonald

Journal

How am I practicing loving others with believers outside my immediate family?

Where can I do better?

Prayer

You showed me, Father, repeatedly, how to practice love for one another. Help me study and imitate Your example. Remind me that love is the clearest evidence the world can see that what I claim about You is true, not because I love perfectly, but because I love authentically. Thank You for setting the bar high, and then helping me every moment to reach it by Your presence and power. In Your name, Jesus, Amen.

“My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” —Proverbs 24:13-14

Imagine the biggest bite of your favorite dessert melting in your mouth right now. Double chocolate fudge cake. Hot apple cobbler. Caramel brownies a la mode. Can’t you just taste it?

Proverbs 24:13-14 says that what all that sweetness is to your mouth, wisdom is to your soul. It drips like honey and satisfies every craving of your soul’s desire. Wisdom helps you believe God’s promises and assures you of hope.

“My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the dripping of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.”

Wisdom promises a destination beyond this unpleasant place we’re in. It holds out hope when you think you’ve blown it so badly that there’s no way back. It tells us that we will have a future. What else promises that? Proverbs 4:7 says that getting wisdom is the beginning of something good . . . something really good. It gives you confidence that your best days are still in front of you.

Do you want to have better days this coming week?

Do you want to make wiser decisions?

Are there priorities you want to establish

Ask God to build a hunger in your heart for wisdom. Claim His promised help to choose the correct plan to gain the desired result (James 1:5).

God’s wisdom is available, both to stabilize and satisfy you. I mean really satisfy you. It’s not too late, it’s not too far away, it’s not impossible to contemplate your life taking a turn for the better. The best things in life arrive on the strong back of God’s wisdom as He leads you to make sound choices and eternally-minded decisions. It’s like honey—or that hot apple cobbler—in your mouth, as sweet as the promise of good things to come, of restoration, and blessing.

Go ahead, eat your dessert first. —James MacDonald

Journal

What is the intensity level of my pursuit of wisdom?

Am I actively asking God for His wisdom to be revealed to me on a daily basis?

Prayer

Father, thank You for Your promises! Thank You for Your wisdom being sweeter than honey and so very satisfying. Help me to desire it more and settle for nothing less in my life. I’m tired of my own way. It doesn’t lead me to a satisfying place like You do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” —Jonah 1:14-17

In Jonah 1:17 we find a third specific action attributed to God in this book. His word came to Jonah in 1:1; He “hurled a great wind” in 1:4 and now in verse 17, “And the Lord appointed a great fish.”

Now I did a little study on that word “appointed” in the Bible. You can’t believe how common it is. Here’s the definition of that word appointed: God has a plan and a purpose for every person. Did you know that? Did you know that the times and the seasons of your life are appointed? We operate as free moral agents in this world and we certainly make choices, but God, knowing in eternity past the choices that we would make, appoints specific responses that will happen. And God has a very particular plan for our life. I kind of like to think of it as a master chess game, that God is so phenomenal at this thing called life that no matter what piece you touch and what move you make, God has appointed the next move so that He can accomplish the things that He wants to accomplish in your life. This word appointed is a phenomenal word.

Here are several key “appointed” Scriptures. Job 23:14 says that “For he will complete what he appoints for me . . .” Job 7:3 says that for each of our lives “nights of misery are apportioned to me.” You may think, “I’ve already had my share!” It’s the truth—every night will not be a perfect night of rest. Some nights God will have you awake and wrestling and thinking through things. Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die on ce.” The appointed day of your entrance into eternity has been set before time began. God knows the day that you’ll step out of this world. And the question is, will you be ready? Because the verse continues, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “For everything there is a [appointed] season, and a [appointed] time for every matter under heaven.” God had no trouble appointing a fish to meet Jonah and change his life. And He’ll put you in circumstances that will radically change your perspective, too!
—James MacDonald

Journal

At what points in life have I had the distinct impression that a circumstance or event was prepared for me?

What valuable lessons did I learn in my “appointed” fish or situation?

Prayer

I realize, Father, that sometimes it takes getting thrown overboard, or under the bus before I realize I’ve been ignoring You! Thank You for appointing hard things in my life if that’s what it will take to teach me a lesson. Help me to pay attention sooner! Thank You for the confidence of knowing that my times are in Your hands. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made.”
—Isaiah 57:15-16

What a great promise from God “to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” But what does God mean by “revive?” You might be thinking of tent meetings and crazy things happening but that’s not what God’s thinking about. So let’s all get on the same page.

First of all, here’s a technical definition. Revival means “renewed interest after indifference or decline.” You can find that in any dictionary. I’ve also heard someone say, “Before you can be revived you have to be vived.” In other words, before you can fire up afresh your relationship with God, you have to have one. You need to be vived, you need to get life that only Christ can give. But those of us who know and are following Christ, who have turned from our sins and embraced Christ by faith as the only basis for our forgiveness, we sometimes allow our love for Him to grow cold. We who are vived sometimes need revival.

So let me give you a clearer biblical definition. Revival is an outpouring of God’s Spirit on God’s people. We don’t revive ourselves. God does it. And the first evidence of an outpouring of God’s Spirit is an abhorrence of personal sin. What we had tolerated and allowed in our lives, what we had looked on with indifference, what we had allowed to creep into the borders of our spiritual life and rationalize away all of a sudden becomes abhorrent in our lives. This comes from an awareness of the holiness and the righteousness of God and the nearness of my accounting before God.

Abhorrence of sin is the negative. Here’s the positive; revival is also an overflowing delight in the nearness and the goodness of God. Abhorrence of personal sin and a delight in God—a fresh, new outpouring of love for God, where it’s not the fact, it’s not the information, but GOD, and so close and so good. And a persistent joy in the nearness and the goodness of God—that’s revival. Do you need revival today? —James MacDonald

Journal

How did I answer that last question in the devotional? What reasons would I use for knowing I need or don’t need revival?

Prayer

Father, there isn’t often a time when I don’t need revival in some way in my life. My spiritual practices can become so easily routine and sin so readily slip into my life. I ask Your Spirit to be my heart and soul monitor that goes off when the rhythms start to fluctuate. I give You permission to interrupt my wandering with a wake-up buzzer. Let me never grow weary of wanting more of You! In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

And the women sang to one another as they celebrated, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” And Saul eyed David from that day on. —1 Samuel 18:7-9

Even leaders are sometimes insecure. People who seem to have everything “going for them” can be very insecure. But insecurity undermines effectiveness, service, and life itself. Here are five clues that help us identify insecurities in ourselves so we can respond to them by trusting God.

1. I know I’m insecure when others do well and it bugs me. “How come they’re being honored?” “How come she’s being recognized?” “Why didn’t I get the raise?” Note Saul’s response to the recognition David was receiving.

2. I know I’m struggling with insecurity when I’d rather do nothing than risk looking bad. After God called him out, Saul became paralyzed as a leader, afraid to do the wrong thing.

3. Insecurity is involved when I take myself too seriously. I can’t admit my faults. I can’t laugh at myself. I told my kids from the time that they were small, if you can’t laugh at yourself, the whole world stinks. Are you one of those people who, when you say something silly or make a mistake that gets the people around laughing, end up seething with anger? You just need to chill out a little bit. We all make mistakes, don’t we? King Saul couldn’t see himself. He was so stressed out he could no longer enjoy laughter or lightness. He lived in a funk.

4. I know I’m struggling with insecurity when I put myself down and I can’t accept a sincere compliment. Saul refused David’s persistent honor and respect.

5. But the worst of all is obvious in Saul’s life: I know I’m drowning in insecurity when I think people are out to get me. “I know what you’re all about. I know what you’re trying to do.” Bouts of paranoia provoke attacks on others. Saul almost speared David and Jonathan to death, neither of whom had done anything disloyal at all!

Insecure people often become tiresome, annoying, and self-absorbed, which leads to their rejection by others. If you find that people are pushing you off because you’re consumed with yourself, you’re in danger. Security is a bi-product of a right relationship with God. “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned”
(Romans 12:3).

Journal

How has awareness of insecurity pushed me toward greater trust and dependence on God?

What is it about my relationship with God that fosters and maintains security?

Prayer

Dear Father, I realize that the more I depend on my own resources, abilities, and wit the more I will be plagued by insecurity. When I’m trying to fill Your role in my life, I’m in trouble even when I don’t realize it! Thank You for the gift of insecurity in places that remind me I can only be ultimately secure in You. Show me today places in my life where I’m not depending on You enough to overcome insecurity. But even more, I simply want to trust You today, no matter what! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night.” —1 Samuel 15:10-11

Read that passage carefully. Does the phrase, “I regret that I have made Saul king” raise any questions for you? Do you think, Can God have regrets? What was God telling Samuel?

There’s a movement today in evangelicalism in North America that teaches something called open-theism. A lot of college kids are buying into it. Here’s the idea behind open-theism: God doesn’t know the future but has to wait for it to unfold like the rest of us. Open-theists point to texts like 1 Samuel 15:10 and say, “See? God wishes He’d never made Saul king. If God had known how Saul would turn out, He would have chosen someone else.” Really?

The Bible teaches that God knows the end from the beginning. God’s decisions have been made, Ephesians 1:4 tells us, “before the foundation of the world.” Yet all that God knows doesn’t diminish all that God feels.

The Bible is the infinite God choosing to make Himself understood to finite people. But we can’t fully understand God. So God accommodates Himself to our understanding. He uses words like “regret.” Notice, 1 Samuel 15: 29 says, “The Glory of Israel (that’s God) will not lie or have regret; He is not a man that He should have regret.” The same chapter says God regretted and that He doesn’t regret. So which is it? It’s this: God doesn’t regret like we do. God doesn’t have the sense of, “Well, I wish I never did that.” What God does have is, having made the decisions that God righteously and perfectly has made, sometimes when the actual action takes place, God’s like, “Whoa, we’re paying a heavy price for this.”

God didn’t regret the fact that Saul was king, but as Saul began to disobey and shame the very opportunity that was given to him, God felt the cost deeply in His heart. The Bible talks about God hating and God having compassion and God feeling anger. God feels things.

Can you feel God’s heart? Do you care how God feels when we who know Him and love Him chose to disobey Him? Even the possibility that God would not be able to say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant” ought to sharpen our resolve to be faithful to the One who saved us. —James MacDonald

Journal

What areas of my life right now would I say God is most pleased with?

Where am I focusing my efforts at improvement in obedience?

Prayer

Father, I cringe to think I would ever cause You to use the word “regret” in reference to any thought You had toward me. I pray along with David, “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression” (Psalm 19:12-13). Lord, You alone can make me into a good and faithful servant. You have my permission! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a medium at En-dor.”
—1 Samuel 28:5-7

The closing events of King Saul’s life remind us that we can reach a point where we decide, like a drowning person going down for the third time, to give up. Saul was experiencing the truth of Isaiah 59:1-2, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” Saul walked into a dead-end in his life and thought there was no way out. In fact, by 1 Samuel 31:4, Saul commits suicide, which is the ultimate act of desperation. It’s important that we realize that there were specific steps that Saul took that got him to that place. Maybe you knew someone who committed suicide. And you ask yourself, how does a person get to that place of desperation? I’m struck again by 1 Samuel 28:6, “And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him.” Saul’s life screams, “Repent of your sin or deal with the consequences of isolation from God.” Saul didn’t have that. He wasn’t even close. And as a result, his life went down fast. He ended up seeking false and demonic spiritual counsel from a medium.

Many times we think we have repented, but we have not. The result is isolation from God. False repentance produces nothing. True repentance produces transparency, eagerness to make amends, a renewed joy in spiritual matters, and confidence in God. It brings peacefulness in our hearts, an intimacy with God, and joy in His presence. Saul did it his way, which turned out to be no way at all.

Saul’s life is one of the most tragic stories in all of Scripture. He missed two crucial things. Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are, “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.” We ask two questions of Saul’s life: how did he relate to God and how did he relate to other people? Saul blew it big time on both points. He was unrepentant in regard to his sin, and he never resolved anything with other people. And he went down for the third time. You and I have to answer those two questions the right way!

Journal

In what specific ways am I demonstrating my love for God and my love for neighbors today?

Since “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2), what would I say are the crucial steps I must take when God makes me aware of sin in my life?

Prayer

Father, the raw failure of Saul’s life that You have included in Your Word shows me Your grace and the firmness of Your truth. Please keep me from taking those same stubborn steps, for I sense how easily I could be Saul. Thank You for Your Spirit’s warnings and reminders when I am not being wholeheartedly obedient. I love You Lord; show me how to love my neighbors better today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’”
—1 Samuel 16:1-2

In looking at the life of King Saul, we’ve already noted that he got into serious trouble with the undertow of sin when he turned away from God. This is the point in history when David, the young shepherd from Bethlehem, bursts on the scene. In today’s passage, God sends Samuel to anoint David as king.

Saul was on the way down; David is on the way up. Saul goes from king to crazy, and David goes from shepherd to king. Saul reaps the results of a foolish heart, and David reaps the benefits of developing a heart of wisdom. Saul goes from prominence to pitiful, while David goes from poverty to the palace. It prompts this question: Are you a Saul, or a David? Let’s look at Saul today.

Now, if Saul had been wise, he would have accepted Samuel’s pronouncement: “Dude, you’re not gonna be the king anymore. That’s it. God’s not going to change His mind.” A repentant Saul could have said, “Hey, losing the throne is the consequence for the choices I made, but I can be forgiven by God. I can serve my family and country. I can let God change me. I may have lost my big opportunity, but I’ll use my smaller opportunities for God’s glory and see what God does.” Saul should have said, “I may have gone down for the first time, but I don’t have to drown.”

Tragically, that’s not what he said. Instead of moving toward God, Saul moved away from God and away from other people. In 1 Samuel 16-27 we watch a life self-destruct. Going down the second time, Saul cut himself off from others: Samuel, David, his son Jonathan, and everyone of positive influence in his life. His insecurities drove him to expect blind allegiance from others. You see, it wasn’t enough that Saul had a problem with David. Now Saul had a problem with everybody who didn’t have a problem with David! He was on the verge of “losing it” entirely.

Yet even at this point, Saul was given opportunities to repent. God help us, wherever we might be today, not to harden our hearts against God’s persistent efforts to get our attention. Ask God to maintain within you a tender and open heart to listen, even when what God must tell you is hard to hear.

Journal

What are the signs of a tender and open heart in my life?

Review the events that occur in 1 Samuel 16-27. In what ways do I find myself identifying with Saul?

Prayer

Heavenly Father, it is easy for me to get caught up in the events of today and fail to acknowledge Your sovereignty over everything. Forgive me for times when I knew better but turned away from You and others because I was stubborn, prideful, or feeling sorry for myself. I would much rather turn toward Your mercy and truth in my life. Continue to remind me, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” (Psalm 139:17a). In Jesus’ name, Amen.