In Proverbs 24, Solomon identifies the key ingredients in the building of a home that will stand the tests of trials and time: “Through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” Part one of this three-part series considered the role of wisdom in building a Christian home. In this post, we focus on understanding.
Half of the marriages in the United States will end by divorce, indicating that there must be a dire need in homes today for what Solomon called understanding. Whereas wisdom is a must for making right resolves, understanding is vital for establishing healthy relationships.
It is doubtless true that happiness in marriage is a matter of not only finding the right person but being the right person. And, being the right person starts with committing one’s life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, trusting Him with all of one’s heart, and leaning not unto our own understanding. (Prov. 3:5,6) A person rightly related to Jesus Christ, by grace through faith, has the basis for being rightly related to others, and this is crucial in marriage relationships. Jesus is the foundation of a life that will be safe and solid in the stormy seas that will sway all: He is the rock and the foundation of which Paul spoke: “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (I Cor.3:11) After the foundation comes the frame of a house (home), and the frame has to do with relationships—being rightly related to God, through Christ, and to one another in Christ.
In having a right relationship to Jesus Christ, we must know, first, that He is our Savior; second, we must joyfully, daily surrender and happily yield to Him as servant for life. It is a service of love. We love Him, and serve Him, because He first loved us. (I John 4:19)
Having inventoried our relationship to Jesus, we ought also to examine how we relate, in our home (marriage), to our spouse.
Men, are you functioning under His guidance as the spiritual leader of your household? Are you leading in worship? Are you providing for the material needs, as God enables you to? Do you cherish your wife and children, and are they often reminded of that fact? Do you dwell with your wife according to knowledge (I Pet.3:1ff.)? Does she know that you are investing in her life, with the goal of assisting her to realize fulfillment in her world? Do you daily experience heart to heart, mind to mind, communication with her?
Wives, is your husband confident that, in you, he has a companion, a completer, a counsellor?
Do you acknowledge that “the woman was made for the man,” and that you and you alone can fulfill his basic needs for fellowship, for faith-building, and for fulfillment as a husband, father, and person?
Moms and Dads, do you have a healthy attitude toward your children? Are they, in your estimation, an heritage of the Lord? Would you agree with President Lincoln, who said that “A child is a person who is going to carry on what you started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and when you are gone, attend to the things you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your states and nation. He’s going to move in and take over your churches and schools and corporations. All your books are going to be judged, praised or condemned by him. The fate of humanity is in his hands. Train him well!”
Finally, a home that will stand the rigors of life must be a home in which there is a relationship to the Body, the Bride of Christ—that is, to His Church. Most every New Testament reference to the church is to a local church, an assembly of “called out” believers in a locality that meets regularly for worship, for honoring the Lord by reading and studying His Word, for keeping the ordinances He has commanded, advancing the cause of world missions by getting the gospel to all peoples everywhere, and for regular fellowship in local church assemblies with those of like faith and practice. There is no substitute for what the local church can provide and produce in the lives of its regenerate members. To be out of fellowship with His church is to be out of fellowship with Him; to be disconnected to a local assembling of His Body, the Church, is to be disconnected from Him who is the Head of the Church that He is building.
A healthy home, where members are rightly related to God and to each other, will be a home where attendance to, and participation in, a Bible-believing local church is a not only a priority but a profitable and pleasurable part of life.
A visitor was being guided around a leper colony in India when, at noon, the bell rang for the midday meal. People flocked to the dining hall from every direction. Peals of laughter filled the air as two young men, one riding on the other’s back, were pretending to be a horse with a rider. As the visitor watched, he observed that the man who carried his friend was blind, and the man who was riding on his back was lame. The one who could not see used his feet, and the one who could not walk used his eyes. Together, they helped each other in getting to where the food was served. So, too, we live, love, and labor together with others in His amazing body, the Church, each ministering the gift with which He has equipped us to fulfill the needs of the body in its complete, edified, state. It is a must for a healthy church, and it is a must for a happy, healthy home that followers of the Lord Jesus Christ be rightly related to a local church.
God help us to build a home upon the foundation which is Christ, with a frame fitly joined together. Each to Christ: husband to wife, and wife to husband; parents to children, and children to parents; and all to other believers in His Body, the Church.
“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Eph.4:13)
YOU and GOD 