I have been greatly affected recently by listening to the Sanctus Real song "Lead Me", and not just listening, but hearing the words of it. As I hear to the lyrics I understand more of what it is to lead my family as God has asked me to do. As husband to my wife and father to my daughter it is my responsibility to lead them in their walk with God. I am to show them God's love and forsake the things that would prevent me from doing so. One particular verse of this song that I like is when he is praying to God and says, "Don't want to leave them, hungry for love, chasing things, that I should give up." A lot of what God has been teaching me lately has to deal with giving things up so that I can better glorify Him and serve Him better. What better way for me to serve God than to lead my wife and daughter to Him for His glory?
To lead, as the song tells, requires us first to be strong. As men of God we understand that our own strength often fails us. The only strength that we can rely on is the strength of God. To be able to stand against all trials and to lead with strength requires the Lord. We must grow in our understanding of God and to increase our faith of Him to have the strength to endure and the wisdom to lead. The next part of the song teaches us that we need to lead with love. As God tells us in Ephesians5:25 we are to love our wives as Christ loves the church. This means we cannot lead them in a way that doesn't contain love, we need to be humble in correcting them and make sure that above all else that they feel love in all the ways that we lead. We also need to make sure that nothing keeps us from leading them. If we lust for things of this world our love will go towards these things and not towards our family. If this happens it can be devastating for a family, I am reminded of the movie Fireproof where the main character is so obsessed with the boat that he wants that he neglects the relationship with his wife. This leads him in other directions as well, the more you desire something else the farther you walk from your family and also from God. You see, with our family as our focus we then desire God more. As a Christian I am unable to properly love without God, I need His love to love others. The more I desire to love my family and to show them how much I love them the more I desire God and His love so that my love may be more genuine. For God displayed the greatest of all love for us through His Son, who laid down His life for us, His entire life, that we would not suffer for our iniquities but instead be restored unto God and have the great promise of eternal life with Him. This is our example, and what does it cost us to lay aside all that we desire when we think upon what He did for us in order that we may better love as He has called us to do?
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