Men, Do You Rule Your Household Well?

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How do you, as a man, fit into your family structure. Do you lead, as God commands, or do you participate in a committee family government? Worse, does your wife lead you?

These are important questions to ask the true Christian, because they lead to him, his wife and children enjoying the blessings of God’s benevolent government. The only way to do that is for God to lead through the head – the man and his faith in his Creator. He must ask for the love, patience, wisdom and judgment to govern properly with the strength and assurance required of him.

The Bible demands that a man “rule his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.” Although this mainly refers to being fit to lead in the Church, the principle can easily be applied to family leadership.

“Ruling well” can be a daunting task for a man. He must exhibit Jesus Christ’s  husbandly qualities towards his wife and God’s fatherly love towards children. Such a subject can be extremely volatile in today’s liberal climate.  We suffer from a world being openly hostile to strong, masculine leadership. Society dictates that such leadership hurts women or children, and in large part, the family. But this hard headed stance doesn’t diminish what God says about family government. But unless men turn to God, instead of displaying open weakness, they choke off God’s ability to lead them.

Many men today fear failure being held over their head. They reason that if the wife is involved in decisions, the burden of mistakes can be distributed. But such a stance shows spiritual immaturity and an inability to be led through God with confidence and authority.

To obey with God leading him, a man should be confident in his decisions. He should solicit God’s help, get counsel from the family where appropriate, then make a decision and stand by it. Though the rest of the family may protest, the man should stand firm in his conviction about the matter.

To prevent major mistakes, the man MUST stay close to God. This does not mean his leadership will not be flawed – IT WILL – but he must exercise his authority as given by God. The benefits to the family will be a faith filled leader who has the wisdom of God’s very counsel, outweighing the occasional less-than-perfect decision.

The family serves as the most complementary institution to the Church and civil government because it is in this environment that our future citizens are inculcated with the values of self government & respect for authority & the law.  The family is the original forum for leadership development and the place where decent law abiding citizens are raised to make a meaningful contribution to society. Consequently, when we allow the walls of leadership within the family to crumble, all we are left with is conflict and chaos.

Our nightly news bulletins and daily headlines bear grim testimony to that fact. Almost all of society’s problems can be traced back to the breakdown of the family government. As the family goes, so goes society!   The dysfunctionality we are currently experiencing in our nation today is nothing but a sad reflection of the lack of godly government within the family.

Many women today will not like this message, but God nevertheless desires the man to exercise faith filled leadership. Only then can God truly shower the family with the abundant blessings of living under the strong, benevolent government of God.