Heaven

What do you think of when you think of Heaven?  Yeah, me too.  I think of a place where every dream has come true, every worry has been erased, where everything I wanted out of life but never got, is.  I get to shed 30 years, 20 kilos and I get to eat my favourite foods and not get fat, see my deceased pets,  and see all those people that went before me that I miss so much.

But, it’s recently become apparent to me that I might have the wrong idea about Heaven.  Heaven is a place for spiritial beings, and to be there, I need a being guided by my spiritual self, not my carnal self. That calls into question the need to have everything I've ever wanted but didn't have on Earth.

Heaven is where God lives, and is a place absolutely drenched in His perfect love.  Perfect, selfless love, as demonstrated by Jesus on the cross.  And, Heaven is filled with angels and saints, beings that were created to and learned to love God as He should be loved, as He seeks to be loved, and to love others in that same way.

Jesus said there were two commandments and that everything else hangs on these: love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love others as you love yourself.  Jesus made this clear because that’s what He is like, and that is what the place He lives is like.  And, if we are to go to Heaven, we must learn to do these two things, because that’s life in Heaven in a nutshell.  If we don’t want to do that here, why would we want to go to Heaven anyway?

It’s not that we suddenly change and these desires magically go away, it’s that when we truly grasp His love in the light of our salvation and what He did to secure it, seeing Fluffy and having a guilt-free burger and seeing Grandma again just won’t be as important.  It will be pleasant, joyous, to be sure, but it will be more the icing on the cake.  But, if the only reason you want to go to Heaven is to have all of your fleshly desires fulfilled continually, you really won’t like it once you get there.  You can't live on icing alone.

Heaven is where God lives and I get to be with Him forever. And, that’s enough for anyone.

Submission

If there is one Bible verse guaranteed to be disliked by at least 50% of the population it’s Ephesians 5:22 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord”. Is Paul the biggest sexist of the first century?  Well, not really.  If you look just before this verse, at Ephesians 5:21, you find “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” So, guys, you’re not off the hook in this submission thing.

This would probably be a good point to talk about the word submission and what it means.  In military terms, to submit is to put yourself under the command of your superior officer. A private will do what his commander in the battle wants him to do, as battles are won with teamwork, and doing your own thing can get you and your whole platoon killed. In our daily lives, we submit to our superiors: bosses, coaches, traffic cops, even in checkout queues, because doing so brings order, and order is the cornerstone of civilization.

But, how does this work in marriage?  Does this imply a hierarchy within marriage, with the man as the leader?  And, if so, can a woman trust the man to be the “superior officer”?  Lack of understanding in the meaning and nature of submission within a marriage has caused enmity between man and woman and has reaped untold heartache through the ages.

Paul addresses the idea of submission as well as the nature of submission between married couples in the context of the Ephesian church.  The key to his explanation is in understanding what he means by submission. The best definition I’ve heard for submission in the context of Ephesians is “to come up from underneath to support”. With this meaning, it becomes easier to understand that submission is not the giving away of liberty or power, but rather something that naturally happens when you love someone. Indeed, if we go just a bit further in Ephesians 5, starting at verse 25, we read that the man must love his wife just as Jesus loves His church.  Ladies, if you think you got the raw deal by being told to submit, the man got the far harder job: look at what Jesus did to show He loves His church!

If a man loves his wife as he should, then the wife need not fear that submission will lead to her degradation or having to do something that is not in line with the will of God, for Jesus would not love His church in this way.

So, if submission means loving your husband/wife as you love yourself, then why did God make the distinction (woman: submit, man: love)? It has to do with the different natures and motivations of men and women. As He pronounces the curse on Adam and Eve for the disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit, God defines the post-fall characteristics of man and woman in Genesis 3:16 “To the woman he said "…Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."”  In Ephesians 5:33, Paul further explains this, when,  in speaking to the man, he says:  “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Btw: this distinction provides yet another scripture that defends marriage as being between a woman and a man.

Man’s basic need from woman is respect (to rule over). The woman submitting to the man fulfills this need.  Likewise, a woman wants to know she is loved (her desire for her husband), and man’s love for her fulfills this. Both get what they need by submitting one to the other, in the context of love.

Within the beauty of this formula is the secret principle that can heal any broken marriage.  All you need is for one to play the part ordained by God, and the nature of the other will draw them in. When a man feels respected, he is drawn into love for the woman, and when the woman feels loved, her respect for the man naturally flows.  But, if you are looking for someone to start the process, remember that Jesus first loved the church:  “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The man is given Jesus’s part in the equation, and the leadership role, for a reason.

This plan for marriages puts the focus on each of us to play our roles, and not worry about the other playing theirs. This negates the “blame game”; within this plan, there are no “irreconcilable differences”. We take our eyes off what the other one is doing and put them on Jesus, and following Him. 

Obedience to God brings marital harmony.  And it all starts with submission: one to another, and both to God.