Marriage, Home & Family

 TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen
“Devotions From the Heart”
“Marriage, Home & Family”
February 2, 2022 – Repost

Marriage, Home and Family.  How do we live as Christians?  In our marriages, in our homes and in our families?  Baxter has some directives that avoid dissension in the home.  A good read for all Christians and reminder of what our God requires of us in our relationships and especially in these areas from a biblical and godly perspective and not with worldly and ungodly means and methods but by His grace, His Word and biblical principles that honor Him and one another. 1/  Read on…

~ ~ ~

Directives for Avoiding Dissension in the Home
by Rev. Richard Baxter

It is a great duty of husbands and wives to live in quietness and peace, and avoid all occasions of wrath and discord. Because this is a duty of so great importance, I shall first open to you the great necessity of it, and then give you more particular directions to perform it.

(1) Your discord will be your pain, and the vexation of our lives. Like a bile, or wound, or fracture in your own bodies, which will pain you till it is cured; you will hardly keep peace in your minds, when peace is broken so near you in your family. As you would take heed of hurting yourselves, and as you would hasten the cure when you are hurt; so should you take heed of any breach of peace, and quickly seek to heal it when it is broken.

(2) Dissension tends to cool your love; oft falling out doth tend to leave a habit of distaste and averseness on the mind. Wounding is separating; and to be tied together by any outward bonds, when your hearts are separated, is but to be tormented; and to have the insides of adversaries, while you have conjugal outsides. As the difference between my house and my prison is that I willingly and with delight dwell in the one, but am unwillingly confined to the other, such will be the difference between a quiet and an unquiet life, in your married state; it turneth your dwelling and delight into a prison, where you are chained to those calamities, which in a free condition you might overrun.

(3) Dissension between the husband and the wife, doth disorder all their family affairs; they are like oxen unequally yoked, that can rid no work for striving with one another. Nothing is well done because of the variance of those that should do it, or oversee it.

(4) It exceedingly unfitteth you for the worship of God; you are not fit to pray together, nor to confer together of heavenly things, nor to be helpers to each other’s souls: I need not tell you this, you feel it by experience. Wrath and bitterness will not allow you so much exercise of love and holy composedness of mind, as every one of those duties do require.

(5) Dissension disableth you to govern your families aright. Your children and servants will take example by you; or think they are at liberty to do what they list, when they find you taken up with such work between yourselves; and they will think you unfit to reprove them for their faults, when they see you guilty of such faults and folly of your own; nay, you will become the shame and secret derision of your family, and bring yourselves into contempt.

(6) Your dissensions will expose you to the malice of Satan, and give him advantage for manifold temptations. A house divided cannot stand; an army divided is easily conquered, and made a prey to the enemy. You cannot forsee what abundance of sin you put yourselves in danger of. By all this you may see what dissensions between husband and wife do tend to, and how they should be avoided.

For the avoiding of them observe these sub-directions:

(1) Keep up your conjugal love in a constant heat and vigor. Love will suppress wrath; you cannot have a bitter mind upon small provocations, against those that you dearly love; much less can you proceed to reviling words, or to averseness and estrangedness, or any abuse of one another. Or if a breach and wound be unhappily made, the balsamic quality of love will heal it. But when love once cooleth, small matters exasperate and breed distaste.

(2) Both husband and wife must mortify their pride and passion, which are the causes of impatiency; and must pray and labour for a humble, meek, and quiet spirit. A proud heart is troubled and provoked by every word or carriage that seemeth to tend to their undervaluing. A peevish, froward mind is like a sore and ulcerated member, that will be hurt if it be touched. He that must live near such a sore, diseased, impatient mind, must live even as the nurse doth with the child, that maketh it her business to rock it, and lull, and sing it quiet when it crieth; for to be angry with it, will do no good; and if you have married one of such a sick or childish temper, you must resolve to bear and use them accordingly. But no Christian should bear with such a malady in themselves; nor be patient with such impatiency of mind. Once get the victory over yourselves, and the cure of your own impatience, and you will easily keep peace with one another.

(3) Agree together beforehand, that when one is in the diseased, angry fit, the other shall silently and gently bear, till it be past and you are come to yourselves again. Be not angry both at once; when the fire is kindled, quench it with gentle words and carriage, and do not cast on oil or fuel, by answering provokingly and sharply, or by multiplying words, and by answering wrath with wrath.

(4) If you cannot quickly quench your passion, yet at least refrain your tongues; speak not reproachful or provoking words: talking it out hotly doth blow the fire, and increase the flame; be but silent, and you will the sooner return to your serenity and peace. Foul words tend to more displeasure. As Socrates said when his wife first railed at him, and next threw a vessel of foul water upon him, ‘I thought when I heard the thunder, there would come rain’; so you may portend worse following, when foul, unseeming words begin. If you cannot easily allay your wrath, you may hold your tongues, if you are truly willing.

(5) Let the sober party condescend to speak fair and to entreat the other. Say to your angry wife or husband, ‘You know this should not be betwixt us; love must allay it, and it must be repented of. God doth not approve it, and we shall not approve it when this heat is over. This frame of mind is contrary to a praying frame, and this language contrary to a praying language; we must pray together anon; let us do nothing contrary to prayer now: sweet water and bitter come not from one spring,’ etc. Some calm and condescending words of reason, may stop the torrent, and revive the reason which passion had overcome.

(6) Confess your fault to one another, when passion hath prevaileth against you; and ask forgiveness of each other, and join in prayer to God for pardon; and this will lay a greater engagement on you the next time to forbear: you will sure be ashamed to do that which you have so confessed and asked forgiveness for of God and man. If you will but practise these directions, your family peace may be preserved.

Soli Deo Gloria,
TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen
©2015 All Rights Reserved

________
1/TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen “Marriage, Home & Family,  from “Directives” –  March 5, 2007, ©2007-2015 All Rights Reserved

We Rejoice in God’s Sovereignty

TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen
“Devotions From the Heart”
“Do you rejoice in God’s Sovereignty?”
May 18, 2021

“The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all.”
Psalm 103:19

I believe nothing rejoices and comforts the heart more than the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.  When we rest in Christ and His work of redemption for us, we are at peace.  He has accomplished everything in order that we have life and have it more abundantly and He has supplied ALL of the gifts to live a life of faith, godliness, joy and peace.  Trusting Him and His sovereign plan for our lives is worship and humility.  It is bowing down to a Sovereign Lord and King.  It is faith and trust in Him, who alone controls all.  He asks us to love Him —  to love Him is to keep His commandments (John 14:15) which He tells us are “not grievous” (I John 5:3).  Isn’t this a marvelous and wonderful doctrine?

Look to these verses:

“The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue,
is from the LORD.” Proverbs 16:1

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”
Proverbs 16:9

“The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”
Proverbs 16:31

Are they not a comfort to your soul?  I believe they are and know that you will rest in Christ as you read them and know He, the great and mighty God, Creator and Saviour is directing your life for your good and His glory.

Now, look to these words of encouragement:

“I.  God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.  II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.  III. God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.” WCF, Chapter V, I-III

and

“If I admit that God’s Will regulates the great movements of the universe I must admit that it equally regulates the small. It must do this, for the great depend upon the small. The minutest movement of my will is regulated by the will of God. And in this I rejoice. Woe is me if it be not so. The more I understand of the character of God, as revealed in Scripture, the more shall I see that He must be sovereign, and the more shall I rejoice from my inmost heart that He is so.”  (Horatius Bonar)

Rejoice in your Sovereign Lord today dear friend!

“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things
to whom be glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:36

* * *
Excellent Read:  Contentment in God’s Sovereignty

Check our “Tolle Lege” page for my recommendations on excellent books on God’s Sovereignty.
______________________
Excerpt from the original series on God’s Sovereignty, TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen
Editor & Publisher – “Heavenly Notes 2001-2015” Repost 5-18-21

God Rules His Universe

TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen
Devotions From the Heart
“God Rules His Universe”
December 2015

God rules! All His creation is His for His glory and the good of His Creation and Creatures. What man or woman can stand up and do what He has done? None! For even the creation depends upon God for life, breath and salvation. There is none other wherein we can be saved, not through man’s inventions or ideology, not through man’s salvation efforts of saving himself or creation but only God through His providence in His Creation and Sovereign Almighty rule. Look to Him and His Word for comfort and life today and eternally.

~ ~ ~

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.  “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements–surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?  “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors,  and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?  “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?  It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment.  From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken.  “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?  Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?  Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.  “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?  You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?  What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?  “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt,  to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man,  to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?  “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?  From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?  The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.  “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?  Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children?  Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?
“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you?  Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?  Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind?  Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens…” [Job 38:1-41]

And the LORD said to Job:
“Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.  Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?  Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?  “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor.  Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him.  JLook on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand.
Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below.
Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you.”  [Job 40:7-14]

_________________________
1/ Copyright ©1997-2015 TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen “Prayers & Devotions”