Confession of a Pharisee



Believe me, I was a law abiding, bible believing Christian Man, age of 40, at a maturity level of about an 18 month old. I would take my plastic car and run it into every situation. Letting my wife and children know I was in control, and dictating every situation. I was given that position by the interputation of scripture. I had all the answer. I was the high priest of my house, expecting everyone to live to the standard of the bible. Living what I thought a happily marriage life. Yes we had some problems, of course. I would of rated my marriage as an 8 out of 10. My wife on the other hand. Let’s ask her. Here it is, a 2. How could we be so far off from each other’s assessment of our marriage? One day 3 years ago my wife came to me with a question. Do you believe I am your equal? The bible talks about being joint heirs in Christ. What do you think I said and did? I became very irate, took her to Genesis, gave her the truth as I new it, as an 18 month old child. Because of sin, you were put under me, I am responsible for you and I will be held accountable for you, and I take that very serious. I am the high priest of our home. You are a joint heir in your salvation. I showed no love, compassion, gentleness, kindness or any fruit of the Spirit. Maturity shows all these things, so I am admitting to you, I had no maturity as a Christian. Where have we heard this before? I will tell you form those who are unwilling to admit where it came from. From the God fearing preachers of my youth, teenage years and my adult years. In the name of Jesus there is a multitude of sinning going on, miss interputation of scripture, and truth that fit into the maturity level of small boys in the body of men. This immaturity brings about no compassion, dictators, selfishness, and lovers of ourselves. Some where as a child I stop growing, I built many wall to protect myself from people that hurt me. I withdrew with my many insurcuties. My weakness were squeched by my manliness. No one was going to hurt me ever again. I was king of my household. Did I mention I had God on my side. Paul says, God Forbid! I’m saying to you men who read this note and do not look at your life. God Forbid!How many men out there would say they have good marriages, and good relationships with their children? I would say 90% of all men would say they do or did. But if we asked the wives we would get and entire different answer. Why is this? We as men would say it is our wives fault and our children are just immature or teenagers. We are so good at passing the buck. We do not see our own immaturity, because we have not matured. Children do not know they are immature. They are blind to the fact, until they are shown and then choose to change there free will, or flesh. This is a reality that few of us men will ever realize. There are two persons who can help us with this, the Holy Spirit and our wife. I can hear the argument now. I know the Holy Spirit can speak to me, but my wife. I am the head of the house. I am the spiritual leader of my family. How does my wife have any authority here? She has no authority and does not want it, she is your God ordained helpmeet. Isn’t that what the Bible says. She is the closest to us. She knows us, She certainly know your flesh is weak. Take some time and just listen to what she is saying to you without defending or commenting. You will be amazed! She is probably saying to you. I need a hug, I need you to help with the children, and I would like to spend more time with you. Can we pray together? Why are you yelling at me? Why do you make me feel small? All the time we are coming back with excusing of why we cannot do it. Is this what maturity would do. The reality of this is we do not take hold of our place as the husband. Standing out in front of our family meeting there needs. We don’t under stand what scripture is teaching. We are content to be a child and bark out order without any thought to what we say or do.Love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. If you are like me, you have struggled with this expression, what does it really mean? As many preachers’ messages state, would you lay down your life for your wife? That’s easy, why of course I would. That’s because it plays right into my pride as a man. I would gladly take a bullet for her, even if our relationship was not that good. I would die a hero, and be labeled, as he really loved his wife. Is that what your wife would say about you? I think not in 90% of marriages.Die daily, die to self, take up your cross and follow me.How many of us men know what that means? I would say only about 10%. We as men really have not matured to the age of 5, so these two concepts or statements, really mean nothing to us.So the first quest to understanding these two scriptural concepts is first maturing. Growing up, if you will. Let’s really look at our lives. We are mature looking on the outside, but on the inside?Answer these questions. How many times do you have to be in control? How many times do we throw a temper tanumn? How many times do we expect life to be a certain way? What do we give up? Do you tell your wife you love her more than 3 times a day? Do you control how the money is spent? Do you help your wife after a hard day at work? Are you a peacemaker? Do you bring healing to your wife? Do you let your wife control the remote control for the TV? Do you see your wife as an equal to you? How many times have you just listened to your wife without trying to fix the problem? Do you dehumanize your wife? Do you put your wife down? Do you think your wife is stupid? Do you think you have Godly wisdom? Is your wife really happy? The questions could go on and on. I think by now you get where I am going with this.We do not love our wives as Christ loved the church, nor do we die daily to ourselves.How many of us give up our wants, desires? How many of us just serve our wives? The laying down of our life, so she is the most important thing to us. What would we need to give up? Our time? Our right to be right? Our immature behavior? Our selfish pride? Many hobbies? The right to our opinion? Do you see how selfish we are? If we did one of these things, we would be on the right track. A whole life is what Christ meant in the above concept. Do we understand if we are not following through with the concept we are abusing someone. What is abuse? It is much more than hitting someone. It is putting others down, to build us up, to put it very simply. How many times do we do this in a day? Do you do this to your wife? I will say to you without knowing you, because our sin nature is naturally selfish, we will always put our needs above our wife first. Because of free will, we will always have to choose to serve our wives over ourselves. So now you are catching on to what it means to die daily. Freewill will need to die, our humanness. Right now, you are probably saying, this does not seem to be fair? You are right, it is not fair! Christ is not calling us to fairness. Is that hard to understand? Hell yes! Again freewill dictates to us, Self. We as men have been taught we are the head. We have been taught we get our self worth from this. We have perverted it in to dominating every avenue of our life, and if it doesn’t go our way, we throw a temper tantrum. We can pout, yell, be silent, run and just plain be immature. You know that comes naturally, because of freewill. So if freewill is our flesh, then we can choose a different path. What a concept? No longer can we say, this is how God made me, and you need to accept me for the way I am. You need to love me, you need to overlook and just get over your dislikes of what I do. It time men to grow up and take the place God intended for us. He intended for us to be mature, to get our self worth from Him, to Honor our wives as the weaker vessel. To die to self, our flesh. We our initiator in the relationship with our wives and children. They will respond to how we act, mature or immature. They will let us know everyday what they needs are. The scriptures call us to be kind, gentle, long suffering, forgiving, and preferring others to ourselves. How many of us men can honestly say we do this on a daily basis. I don’t know of one. Right now I can hear you saying. Well they do not do that for me. Again you would be right. But you are still looking for fairness. We are not called to fairness. We are call to die to ourselves. Once you start to grasp this concept, you will see where you and the devil have errors in your thinking.