God is a God of Order
One of the first and most difficult but important things that I had to learn when God added me to the Body of Christ was order. Order within my household and in my life.
Explain why: Mom and dad’s relationship as it appeared to me (equal). My wife’s upbringing was male dominant.
Once I understood how order worked, I implemented it in my household (with difficulty at first) and in my work environment. The first thing I had to learn, and show was mentioned by Paul in the first verse of 1 Corin. 11. “Be ye followers of me even as I am of Christ”. I had to implement that verse into my life and show that I was following Christ. Once order was established in my life, I could establish order in my household. We can apply the principles of order in any situation, spiritual or natural, but first you must establish it in your personal life.
1 Corinthians 12:40 “Let all things be done decently and in order.”
1 Corinthians 14:33 “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches and saints”
God put in order the universe (Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) in that order and continued in a set order finishing with man and woman. God detailed how we should prioritize our lives through His law with His Ten Commandments. Jesus summarized the most important parts in Matthew 22:37:
Matthew 22:37 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”.
This statement implies to my wife that if I’m not following Christ, then she shouldn’t follow me.
1 Corinthians 11:1-3 “Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Here Paul makes it clear:
- God
- Christ
- Man
- Woman
We always fall into one of those categories except for the category reserved for God. When I supervised a staff, I fell into the Man category of the relationship, and my subordinates were the Woman of the relationship. I treated my supervisor as the “Man” in the relationship, and I became subservient to him or her. In the Fellowship Church, Pastor Brintley is in the stead of Christ, and I’m the Man and in some cases the Woman in the relationship as being subservient to the Pastor. We as a congregation (including Pastor Brintley) are the Woman or Bride to Christ.
Ephesians 5:23-29 “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. (This following verse is what husbands need to work on)vs.25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves his own body. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourished and cherished it, even as the Lord the church”.
Paul breaks down the relationships in the Oder of God perfectly. If husbands, bosses, supervisors, wives, subordinates lived and followed this example, there would be harmony. Unfortunately, the spirit of the world corrupts Divine order. When I was a teenager, there was a book written by a man called “Iceberg Slim”. It was his story of a pimp and how he controlled the women that worked for him. He controlled them through violence and fear. Many of my friends at the time tried to implement that model. Fortunately, I had parents that exploded that myth.
Divine Order is about Love, about sacrifice and about following the example Christ set for us as Christians. Divine order works in marriage, in relationships and in life.
Examples of following order:
- David and Saul: 1 Sam. 24:2-6
- Exodus 40:1-16
- Psalms 119:133
- Matthew 8:8-10
Examples of addressing disorder:
- 2 Thessalonians 3:6-16
- Ezra 10:1-5
- Titus 1-16
