Who Are You? Week 5

Father,
Thank you that you explain what it means to live as your children, your ambassadors, here. Help me, as a man, to choose to sacrifice myself rather than to demand more than I give. Help me to live loved, so that I can be free from the ways of the world.
In Jesus’name,
Amen.
On Monday, we were reminded that we are beloved children of God, which also makes us ambassadors of the Kingdom. Like any child, we should aspire to be like our Papa. As we spend more time with Him, and learn of and from Him, forsaking the ways we used to live should get easier. This makes it easier to represent Him and be a good ambassador here on earth, as that is what you are, in Christ: an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. How can we represent a holy God if we are not holy ourselves. We talked a little bit about holiness the week before last, but in short, it is this desire to be like our Father, a response of love to the love that we receive on a daily basis.
On Wednesday, we described the holiness that we are to aspire to, the difference in our lives that should be emblematic for us. This passage refers back to the previous section about ones who live according to the world: sexually immoral, greedy, impure, and idolatrous. Don’t listen to one who lives like this, no matter how impressive their words may sound. Live in Light, not darkness. You are unified with Christ and have His light in you. Therefore, you are to live in light and holiness not the darkness of sin, which only hurts you and those around you in the long run.
On Friday, we learned how we are to related to one another. Men, we are servant-leaders. Women, you are to be devoted to your men as the Church is devoted to Jesus. Men, we are to sacrifice ourselves for our wives and families as Jesus did for us. These are lofty pinnacles which we are told to aim for. Notice the words servant and sacrifice, men. They give us the right to ask certain things, but only if our lives reflect this ideal. This is not a ticket to be able to simply make demands of our wives, we need to be re-formed in Christ, so that we are not complete jerks. Women, respond in love to your men, even if he does not treat you properly. That doesn’t mean that you need to be a doormat, however, you are called to love the one you are married to, not to be some sort of butterfly flitting from man to man, either.

So, who are we, this week? We are holy ambassadors of the Holy King. We are His dearly loved children, so moved by the love He gives us that we start to emulate it in our daily lives, rather than living as the world does. This extends to how husbands and wives are designed to complement one another: the man is to image Jesus by laying his life down for his bride, rather than being a conceited jerk (like a typical Roman Pater Familias) and sitting around ordering the family about. Our service to our families is what confers authority to us, not merely being the sperm donor. Women (wives), respond in faithful love to your husband, honor your vows to him. This is a general rule, not meant to apply in situations of neglect or abuse or infidelity. At the same time, you shouldn’t be buzzing from man to man thinking that the grass is always greener outside the bounds of her marriage. If a man is busy sacrificing himself for his wife and family, then he won’t have time or energy to add a different “Yes” to the “Yes” he already spoke to his bride on their wedding day.