My fellow husbands, we need to remember that Jesus does not look at His fumbling, sometimes-inattentive, often-rebellious, not-in-perfect-shape bride (the church - all of us) with a scowl, but with eyes blazing with sacrificial love and passion for her future splendor. He does not view and treat her with provoked contempt for her present condition, but views her and treats her with love that envisions and will ensure her future perfection. As His sacrificial love for His bride is the initiating, endearing, and enduring influence for her beautifying sanctification, can it be so for us with our wives? Yes, as we reflect Him to them, and the world.

2 Chronicles 24:20-22
Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has forsaken you.’ ” 21 But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the LORD. 22 Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, “May the LORD see and avenge!”*

The Spirit of God clothed Zechariah to speak a relevant word to rebellious people and when they recoiled against him, it cost him his life. His Spirit-anointed stand for God severed him from his own people and from his earthly life. The very Word of God Himself crossed over to us, was visibly clothed with the Spirit of God like a dove coming down from heaven, and they crucified Him. What will be my price to pay for preaching the truth of God by the Spirit of God? I would rather die clothed with the Spirit than live naked in my flesh. How about you?

*Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

John 4:34
"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."*

Jesus was truly and fully human. He was not some other kind of human. He was human just like we are. He got tired and had to rest like we do. He got thirsty and had to drink like we do. He got hungry and had to eat like we do. He needed vitamins and nutrition for His body to keep living, just like we do. He was human just like us. However, not just like us, in being truly and fully human, He was truly and fully devoted to God the Father as God the Son. Living for the Father was the main course on the table of His life. Doing the will and accomplishing the work of the Father was His food for life. The excellence of Jesus' devotion to the Father is what sets Him apart among human beings, and this is the new paradigm He sets for us as new human beings in being born again. If we claim to belong to Him - to walk with Him - then we must ask ourselves, "Am I a Christian after Jesus' heart?"

*Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (NIV)