Upon waking this
morning, and after making the coffee, I woke my husband at his request.
Once he is up, I like to make the bed right away and get our room back
in order. As I was in the process of making the bed, my husband commented,
"You make a mean bed." Now, I understand that he was complimenting my
bed-making skills, but those words kept ringing in my ears and went down
into my heart as the Lord took and used them on me another way....
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 7 and read verses 1-5. You will see how
the Lord began to prick my heart with this topic today:
"Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife,
and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto
the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise
also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud
ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may
give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan
tempt you not for your incontinency."
This is rather a delicate topic and one I have never really discussed
publicly before, but I believe that the Lord would have me to touch on
it today. Let me just begin by asking you married women what the Lord
asked me today - Do you make a "mean" bed? Now ladies, you know that I
am talking about more than just having all the corners of the sheets tucked
up, the pillows fluffed and the bedspread neatly arranged....
There are some guiding principles for our marriages that the Lord has
given us here in this portion of His Word. One purpose for marriage as
defined here, is to avoid fornication - sexual uncleanness. How many of
us would be happy to find out that our spouses were guilty of fornication?
Do you truly understand and take seriously your role in preventing this
from happening in your home? Too often, we ladies use our sexual relationship
as a weapon to fight with rather than a tool to build our marriage relationship
with!
God clearly stated that every man should have his own wife. He didn't
attach, "only if he deserved it", to the end of that verse! Yet we wives
are prone to act as if this were actually scriptural thinking as we taint
the privilege of sexual love that God says is our husband's right and
a very normal, healthy part of marriage. Are you depriving your husband
of his sexual needs, dear lady? Are you making him feel like he has to
"earn" the right to enjoy your love and physical intimacy with you? When
we get married, our bodies are no longer our own and we would do well
to understand that God says we are not to deprive our husbands!
We are also told in verse 3 to render unto one another "due benevolence".
Do you know what that means? It means we are to have the disposition to
do good to one another. Benevolence is defined as "love accompanied with
the desire to promote the other's happiness". That means that you need
to be the initiator once in awhile! Usually it is our personal happiness
that we women want to be guaranteed of OUTSIDE of the marriage bed before
we will freely give ourselves to our husbands! In other words ladies,
we are guilty of making "mean" beds....
To refuse each other is to open wide the door and extend an invitation
to Satan into your home, starting right at the most intimate place - your
sexual relationship! Don't be guilty of making a "mean" bed and causing
your spouse to become tempted to seek his satisfaction elsewhere.... We
have been given the sexual responsibility of one another's bodies through
marriage. "The wife hath not power of her own body".... As wives, we are
no longer to focus on OUR needs anymore. In obedience to God and because
of love for our husbands, we need to give ourselves physically to them
on the basis of our husband's needs, not our own!
Philip. 2:4, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also
on the things of others."
Nor are we to reject them on the basis of those unmet needs that we might
bring to bed with us every night! Ladies, I hope you don't make your husband
wait until every emotional, physical and spiritual need you have is met
before you are willing to engage in a sexual relationship with him! That
is unrealistic and unfair and yes, unkind! Should we as Christian women
hold back when there is opportunity to give the greatest proof of love?
When you are aware your husband has a sexual need and you choose to ignore
it and reject him, it is sin!!
James 4:17 says, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth
it not, to him it is sin."
Whether you've thought about it or not, God is holding us each accountable
for this intimate area of our marriages. A sexual relationship with you
is a gift that God has bestowed upon your husband the day you two were
married - who are you to withhold it?? Would you say you are being a good
steward of the privilege you have of sexual intimacy with your husband?
Are you going to be ashamed when the Lord asks you how well you took care
of our husband's body? Oh, we don't mind doing their laundry, cooking
their meals, buying their clothes etc. We take pride in being able to
efficiently meet these types of needs, even considering ourselves "Proverbs
31 Women" because of it! But the question today is - what kind of a bed
are you making for your husband??
Proverbs 31:11-12, "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,
so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil
all the days of her life."
Verse 5 of our main text goes on to say, "Defraud ye not one the other...."
Defraud is defined as - "to withhold wrongfully from another what is due
him, to prevent one wrongfully from what he may justly claim, to defeat
or frustrate".
It doesn't get any clearer than this, ladies! This is EXACTLY the behavior
we are guilty of when making "mean" beds! We are specifically told by
the Lord NOT to do this to one another. Rather husbands and wives are
to be in tune with each others needs.... Confession time, amen? What excuses
have you been hiding behind in order to deny your husband, to prolong
your physical separation? It's no different than committing robbery, for
you are stealing what is rightfully his! I often wonder about all the
sexual abuse cases, the incest cases that are so prominent in our society.
Could it be in some of those homes there are frustrated, defeated, rejected
husbands who have been pushed to the place of having to find sexual satisfaction
elsewhere because their wives are guilty of making "mean" beds? God help
us!
If your husband could be asked in strictest confidence to describe the
way he feels about your sexual relationship, would he choose the word
"frustrated"? Has he felt you've defrauded him? Is he defeated, shot down
when he approaches you to make love? Perhaps at this point you are saying
within yourself, "But what about me?!" Maybe that type of thinking is
precisely the root problem in your home, dear wife.... I read of a Christian
counselor who once said of sexual problems within marriage, "There are
no sex problems, only personality problems with sex as one of the symptoms."
Hmmm..... Could that personality problem be selfishness? Is it causing
us to make "mean" beds?
It's no secret that there is an increase of divorce among Christians,
even those serving in the ministry and it must break God's heart! However,
when a husband and wife are yielded to the Lord, and when they truly seek
to please each other in the marriage relationship, the marriage will be
so satisfying that neither partner would think of looking elsewhere for
fulfillment! What then is the place and purpose of sex? God intends, as
the story of Eve's creation from Adam shows, that the "one flesh" experience
should be an expression and a heightening of the partner's sense that,
being given to each other, they now belong together, each needing the
other for completion and wholeness.
Romans 12: 1 says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service."
1 Corinthians 6:19 & 20 says, "What? Know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit which are God's."
Ladies, if you begin each day surrendering your body to Christ, it will
make a great deal of difference in what you do with your body during the
day AND night! As a Christian, your body is NOT your own, it is first
God's and then your husband's. The Lord wants you to use it for holy purposes
- to love your husband, not punish him!!
Now, what kind of a bed are you going to make today?
God Bless,
Pam
Isaiah 60:1&2
Copyright 2000 Pamela A. Iannello
