The Bride of Christ

Have you met, Susannah?  She is a wonderful girl who blogs over at Simple Moments Stick.  I love reading her blog.  She truly has a heart that follows after the Lord, and she inspires me.  Last month, I linked up with her for "In His Image."  This month, the topic is The Bride of Christ.

One of the first things that came to mind when I saw the topic for this month's link up was a passage from Ephesians.  It likens marriage between a man and woman to that of the relationship with Christ and the church:

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself." Ephesians 5:21-28

That can be a lot to take in...especially all of that "submitting" stuff, but all you strong-willed women, don't go running out on me just yet.

I do not think that God intends for us to be doormats.  I do not believe that this passage suggests that we bite our tongues, lay down, and get walked all over.  Don't forget that after we are told to submit to our husbands, the husbands are told to love their wives.  What I do think we are being told is to respect our husbands as we respect Christ.  No one but Christ is perfect.  Sure, we get mad at all of the stupid some of the things our husbands say or do.  We're HUMAN.  But if we truly love him, we learn to accept those things, forgive, and keep on loving him anyway.

Think about how many times Christ does that for us.

It really puts things into perspective doesn't it?

Each day is a new day to start with a clean slate.  Those dirty clothes in the middle of the floor?  Pick them up, and go on.  Christ erases our slate each time we humble ourselves, come before him, and ask for forgiveness.  If He can do this for us, so undeserving, it is certainly something we can do for a person we pledged to love "for better or for worse," isn't it?

In His Image

My friend, Susannah, from Simple Moments Stick is starting a new link-up to encourage us, and remind us that we are all created in God's image.

It took me time to decide what I wanted to write about for this first link-up. The only thing that kept coming to me stems from things that have happened in my family recently. We had two deaths in our family in two weeks. My uncle's mother, who was a big part of our family, and my grandfather.

I don't want this to be a sad post, and I promise this will connect with the theme of the link-up. :)

First of all, though we are sad to not have them with us any more, we are comforted to know that we will see them again:

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 NIV)

Secondly, I am reminded of how blessed my family is. We have always been very close. My cousins are more like my brothers and sisters than cousins. Even though we are grieving, we remember to celebrate the lives of these two people, rather than dwell on their deaths. We banded together with love to support one another.

Jesus said, “'A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.'" (John 13:34 NIV)

Sure, we're family. We're supposed to love each other any way, aren't we?  Unfortunately, many families in society today do not get along. They don't love and support each other. We do. God gave us each other. Do we always agree?  No. But we always love each other.

So, in that way, we are made in His image. Jesus also said, "'By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.'” (John 13:35 NIV)