We have so many wives and husbands ask us what does it mean to be the spiritual leader of the home. What does it look like to have a spiritual leader in your home? How can I get my husband to be a better spiritual leader? How do I motivate my husband? What do I need to do to get him to do it? In this episode, we talk about 8 simple steps to help you become a better wife and husband.
00:01:50.480Yeah, I mean, guys, months of work that turned into, gosh, so much time on writing scripts and studying and filming and motion graphics and web design.
00:02:03.780I mean, guys, I really believe this program is quite beautiful.
00:02:07.040I'm going to give you guys just a little bit of an overview of the program.
00:02:10.860it's six 20 to 30 minute video lessons with Veronica and I both I'm doing most of the teaching
00:02:18.520but Veronica is in these lessons and then six marriage challenge checklists and these checklists
00:02:24.640are really cool they're beautifully designed they have a few questions for you to answer after you
00:02:28.720watch the video and then there's four really cool tasks or challenges that you can do for the week
00:02:35.560and then we also have a private online community that you can be involved and engage with other
00:02:40.400couples that are biblically centered and want to build a great marriage and you can also do it as
00:02:46.080an individual couple or you can do it in a small group and i think the small group structure we
00:02:52.280have a facilitator guide all that kind of stuff i think it it makes the price cheaper if you do it
00:02:57.260in a small group i think that's going to be a really popular setup we already have couples that
00:03:01.320yeah we have quite a few people who just do bible study small groups off of just listening to our
00:03:06.200podcast they gather with people once a week in their homes with you know like-minded individuals
00:03:11.340and listen to our podcast or watch our video on youtube and then do a bible study off of it which
00:03:17.240was really cool yeah so i think to take this and have a more structured curriculum i'm just really
00:03:23.360excited so if you want to be a part of this program just go to ultimate marriage.com and you guys can
00:03:29.780be a part it's again it's a companion ministry of relearnchurch.org which is our i would say
00:03:35.960our mothership ministry, all right, our home base.
00:03:39.620And same with, you know, Real Christianity is a part of that.
00:03:42.740I want to remind you guys that this podcast is 100% funded by our listeners.
00:03:47.960And so this is not something that makes money for us.
00:03:51.580It is absolutely funded by our listeners.
00:03:54.400We're supported by the prayers and the funding of God's people.
00:03:57.080So we just want to say thank you guys.
00:03:58.760So many of you guys have donated $5 or $15 a month
00:04:02.900and really allowed us to continue to justify doing this podcast every single week.
00:04:10.380And I really want to, you know, this is eternal work.
00:04:13.940It's kind of hard to think about that, but that's really what this is doing.
00:04:16.840If you guys read the reviews that we have on the podcast,
00:04:19.760you'll realize that the Lord is using this as eternal work.
00:04:24.460And it's very much important ministry.
00:04:26.580So I want to remind you guys, if you guys do feel led to support the ministry in any capacity,
00:04:30.720whether it's prayer or by finance you guys can always go to relearnchurch.org forward slash
00:04:37.800donate and we would appreciate that so we're going to get started all right so i think that
00:04:45.960today's conversation is more important than people realize even when you talk to some of
00:04:52.200our friends who grew up in the church and grew up in christian homes they often talk about how
00:04:57.940their mother played the role of spiritual leader in their house and for many of those people that
00:05:04.240trend seems to kind of continue on into their own marriage and what we have learned is that many
00:05:12.160couples don't know what it even looks like to have a husband that leads the family and does
00:05:19.880that mean you know a lot of people wonder does that mean that he prays at dinner or does that
00:05:24.520mean he reads the bible to me or to our family what does this really look like yeah and we've
00:05:30.680seen this so many times where if you are in a family that you were raised where mom was the
00:05:35.860spiritual leader and that's the wife in the relationship it almost always reproduces itself
00:05:43.920in the marriage where you now have another woman who is acting just like her mom did because that's
00:05:48.540the example that she had and there are unique circumstances you know dad passed away when you
00:05:54.280or young, whatever it is. But we're not talking about the unique circumstances here.
00:05:59.240Yeah, we're talking about the general rule of thumb. So first, before we kind of get started,
00:06:03.880I'm going to get some scripture out in front of us. And I think it's important just to kind of
00:06:08.800understand the reason the husband is called to be the spiritual leader and the reason the wife is
00:06:15.320called to follow that leadership. So we're going to be looking at Ephesians 5, 22 through 27. It's
00:06:21.280a passage we've read several times on the podcast. We're going to kind of give you a quick refresher
00:06:25.400and then we are going to move into the eight-step process. So just bear with us. We're going to do
00:06:30.680some little preface work here and then we're going to dive into that process. So starting off in
00:06:36.500Ephesians 5, 22 through 27, it says, Wives, submit to your own husbands, not every man,
00:06:42.700to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ
00:06:48.300is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject
00:06:53.360to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives
00:06:59.400just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her
00:07:03.940with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church,
00:07:08.940not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
00:07:15.180okay such a critical passage i i always recommend couples just to memorize this passage of scripture
00:07:22.860i've done it several times um i feel like i got it about 80 right now but uh it's something that
00:07:29.000you just have to kind of keep fresh on your mind it's the pattern and model for biblical christian
00:07:33.720marriage so the role of the wife is to submit the duty of the husband is to love okay i'm going to
00:07:40.860say that again the role of the wife in this passage is to submit to her own husband's leadership but
00:07:45.000the role or the duty of the husband is to love. And we don't have time to walk into and just the
00:07:52.320deep conversation around submission and headship and leadership. But I'm going to briefly define
00:07:57.260submission as this idea of falling under one mission. So ladies, when you hear the word
00:08:03.760submission, think about it as falling under one mission in terms of falling under the authority
00:08:11.300structure that God has in place for your family. Yeah. And I often remind wives that I don't
00:08:19.620follow Dale because Dale said so. You've actually never told me that. I follow Dale because Christ
00:08:26.320said so. And by me submitting to Dale, by me following Dale, I'm actually falling in line
00:08:32.600with God's authoritative structure. Yeah. And this is what fuels my desire for Dale to lead our
00:08:39.000family and actually restricts my desire to walk independently. Yeah. It's, it's her wanting to,
00:08:45.800again, this idea of falling under the mission, uh, or, or just the, the unified authority
00:08:51.140structure that God has put in place. It's called derived authority in theology circles. This idea
00:08:56.920that there's really the only authority that, that exists in the world all comes from God.
00:09:02.440And the only authority in your marriage comes from God. And I'm going to explain this. It's
00:09:07.4001 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 3. It says, but I want you to know that the head of every man is
00:09:12.840Christ. The head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God. This idea that ultimately the only
00:09:19.200authority that Jesus has is the authority that the father gave him. The only authority that your
00:09:23.020husband has is the authority that Jesus gave him. The only authority that the wife has is comes1.00
00:09:27.460through her husband and it goes down to the children. And so this idea of the authority0.96
00:09:32.320structure is you're falling under one mission. So Veronica is, in fact, when she's in submission to
00:09:38.560me as her husband, she's really just being submissive to Christ. And I think that's an
00:09:45.080important part to talk about. So what does leadership as the head of the family really
00:09:52.940look like in a practical way? And that's the question we want to answer today. How can men
00:09:58.300lead and love because that was the command their wives as christ leads and loves the church and
00:10:06.460again i think men just want something simple you know i think women want men to want something
00:10:12.180more complex and emotional but in fact i really believe that men just need something simple they
00:10:17.040need to understand okay how do i get the basics the foundation laid so that i i can at least
00:10:23.780fulfill the minimum requirements and then we can work from there. Right. And so we're going to
00:10:29.220foundation. Yeah. And so we're going to give you a list to check, a map to follow. And I think
00:10:34.740that's what this episode is really about. Yeah. And for me, Dale's, you know, eight step process
00:10:40.720that he's going to share with you. If everything on that list occurs every week, I feel like our
00:10:47.340marriage and our family is actually progressing forward. And I think this is what most women are1.00
00:10:52.900looking for um which is actually you know not really that much um i bet it probably takes you
00:11:00.080i don't know 90 minutes a day um and it makes all of the difference in our life it makes a huge
00:11:06.660impact um but again i don't think women um know what they want in terms of spiritual leadership
00:11:13.160and i don't think men know what they should do in terms of spiritual leadership so um today's
00:11:19.520episode, my hope is that this removes some of the confusion that some people may have and gives
00:11:27.040people, couples, a good starting point that puts their marriage and their family life back in
00:11:33.680order. Yeah, I think that's a good point. And so let's go into this process. It's an eight-step
00:11:38.460process. And again, as I said before, there's five steps that happen every day. And then there's
00:11:44.900three steps that happen uh throughout every week and so we're going to break these down
00:11:50.580you don't need to worry about writing these all down because you can just go to
00:11:54.520relearnchurch.org forward slash listen and look for this episode and we're going to have this
00:12:00.380written down for you yeah all the show notes will be available for you there so uh number one
00:12:05.480number one for me is as the spiritual leader of my home is i am having personal prayer and study
00:12:12.960time every day for a minimum of 30 minutes what kind of meeting have you ever had that's been a
00:12:20.800good meeting that's less than 30 minutes like none no let's go have a 15 minute meeting no that you
00:12:26.260don't do that 30 minute meeting is this is with the god of the universe and you're going to give
00:12:32.600them the best time of your day and so you wake up early or for me i actually do it about an hour and
00:12:39.860a half after I get up in the morning because that's the best time of my day I want to go in
00:12:44.200and dive into work but instead I go and I spend 30 to 60 minutes with the Lord and before you move
00:12:50.560on if I can just say something for the wives we're to be our husbands help me help me and so
00:12:57.020if they need that time that's one way that we can be helping them I sure you know sometimes it'd be
00:13:03.880frustrating because you could really use that help but that's actually priority that your husband
00:13:08.060gets into the word and he's studying the word so that way he can refuel your family he can refuel
00:13:12.880you he can refuel your kids spiritually um so we need to make sure that we um allow and accommodate
00:13:19.900for that time yeah you don't want to be a barrier to like your husband trying to lead because it
00:13:25.160starts with this step i'll tell you what this is the most critical step you can't lead spiritually
00:13:31.160if you're not being filled spiritually and so this is without this step none of the other steps
00:13:37.060matter because you have to be filled up with God's truth, with the Holy Spirit, having time
00:13:44.360with the word and with God in communion. And if there are two things that your flesh hates as a
00:13:49.360man, and I guess as a woman too, it's studying God's word and praying. Your flesh, your evil
00:13:55.400broken down flesh hates the idea of praying and studying God's word. You're never going to be
00:14:02.500excited to do it in your flesh. You're going to be excited to do it in your spirit, but a lot of
00:14:09.020guys have to kind of get their, their flesh into subjection of their spirit. You know, it's a work
00:14:15.980and I think it's, it's the work of the Holy Spirit in you. And for me, it's been, it's not just about
00:14:21.500don't turn this into a habit, man. This isn't about, I'm going to do this for 21 days and it's
00:14:26.140going to become a habit. That's, that's not what I'm talking about here. Sit before the Lord and
00:14:30.260pray that the lord gives you a desire to desire him pray that the lord gives you a desire to pray
00:14:37.360to kind of fill you up with a hunger for more so that it's driven by god and not driven by
00:14:43.820like i'm gonna check this off my list and be a really disciplined man and get this done every
00:14:48.360day that's doing it in your own strength yes you you want to to want to do this and so you got to
00:14:55.860get there and get your flesh in subjection of your spirit and have the Lord be the power behind this
00:15:01.740thing. So that's step number one, personal prayer and study time, 30 minutes minimum per day.
00:15:11.180Number two of the eight step process is provide your wife with the same personal prayer and study0.96
00:15:18.920time. If you're leading your wife, you're not leading your wife to you. You're leading your0.76
00:15:25.400wife toward God and so you got to make sure that you again make time for her and you know I'll
00:15:32.540admit I have not been the best but I have worked to make sure that she does get time pretty often
00:15:39.740and it is a work that you need to constantly get going this morning you actually had some time
00:15:45.440um you know get a little rusty I'll say hey can I have 20 minutes 30 minutes yeah and so just
00:15:52.940getting her away from the kids when you get home from work just go hey I'll watch the kids why don't
00:15:58.860you go in the room and um you know study for 20-30 minutes um and in the morning I mean what does that
00:16:05.020do for you if on those days that you get that time uh it helps me to be focused on you know have a
00:16:15.060kingdom perspective of my day instead of getting lost in the little you know annoyances and
00:16:20.980cleaning and things that you know come up when you're a stay-at-home mom um it just helps me
00:16:26.940walk into my day filled up knowing what my priorities are i've spent time with the lord
00:16:32.640i've prayed i've read the word and now i have a like a vision a vision yeah that's good so
00:16:40.200personal prayer and study for the men personal prayer and study for the wives step number three
00:16:45.140on the daily five steps and then we're gonna do the three weekly steps host a family bible time
00:16:51.460this could be in the morning this could be in the evening 10 to 15 minutes that's it um and we sit
00:16:57.640we read we pray and we just usually um we do this just in our living room we uh we sit down as a
00:17:06.460family put the kids on a blanket or a pillow and we read usually one chapter or one bible story
00:17:13.060and then we pray we have younger kids if we are older it might be a little bit different
00:17:17.300um and time could be longer they could take turns reading we can discuss whatever it is that you've
00:17:23.740read um but that's just what we've done yeah and we let them pray and then i pray over the family
00:17:29.320and so that's something that we do every single morning we read sometimes we'll read just the
00:17:34.020new king james version of the bible one chapter or the esv um or we'll read bible stories and i'm
00:17:41.280to share actually a book that we read um in the morning i've been going for the last probably 20
00:17:46.880or 30 days the kids through one of these books and um i want you to be clear on one point bible
00:17:53.460story books teach your kids that bible story books are not the bible the bible is the bible
00:17:58.900the they're the little kids bibles those are bible stories and it's not a bible um and so
00:18:06.700just kind of getting their head wrapped around there is a bible and that's what that is over
00:18:10.800there this is a bible story book and so i'm going to share with you guys one of those things right
00:18:16.120here for those that you guys are watching this as a video you guys get a chance to see it but it's
00:18:21.200called uh follow me it's bible stories for young children and um this is actually produced by
00:18:29.640reformation heritage books and i really appreciated it it's got three little questions um at the end
00:18:37.200of every little story and it's got some great illustrations on it so anyways this is just one
00:18:42.520simple resource that we have used in our home um and it's short story and then again those questions
00:18:49.880are they're they're age specific for like little kids between probably three to eight you know
00:18:57.440yeah some questions there at the bottom if you're watching it yeah so some fun illustrations right
00:19:01.740there so that's been a great resource um and reformation heritage is actually partnered with
00:19:07.340us and um you guys can actually get a copy of that for a discount you just go to reformation
00:19:12.180heritage or actually i think it's heritagebooks.org forward slash rc and you can get it for really
00:19:19.480cheap anyways it's a fun little resource i want to show you one more resource that i think is one
00:19:25.620of the coolest family bible time resources that has ever existed it's called the family worship
00:19:30.900Bible guide. I haven't got a chance to use this much because our kids are a little bit young for
00:19:35.820it, but it's a really cool concept. And again, I'm showing this here. It looks like a Bible
00:19:40.780and it's on it is just in gold foil. It says family worship Bible guide. What this is,
00:19:47.380and it's by the same publisher, it's an entire book and every single chapter of the Bible
00:19:55.380from Genesis to Revelation has two questions.
00:21:06.060I didn't invent it, but it's just the idea of we do a little thing called prayer and proclamation.
00:21:10.900But, you know, lots of dads go and pray for their kids at night.
00:21:14.500But this idea of proclaiming truth to them and teaching them to proclaim truth back to you is a process that I think is just a fun thing to do.