Discerning & Receiving in Marriage
Many people despise those who come across humbly. You can see this in every setting. It happens with husbands and wives; you see some wives despise the humble, simple husband, and others who are bullied day and night behave humbly and meekly under the crushing fist of their husband who does not fear God.
It should not be so. To be humble and receive a person, you need to look beyond appearances. You must look at how things should be.
Is the man doing what he ought to do? If he is, then give him the honour he deserves according to the word of God. Do not look at him and say, “He is not even impressive. Look at how he acts. If he was tall, broad, and striding with a booming voice…” What if he was all that, cruel, harsh, an alcoholic, not providing for the home but expecting to be fed, and even threatening to throw out his wife?
The fact that a husband is present, on time, available, simple, and helpful should trigger humility in his wife to receive him.
His humble state should not work against her recognizing him as the one whom the Lord has sent in His name to shepherd or to rule in the household.
How to Recognise the Lord
Apply this context (that is, not despising humility, but recognizing true authority) to every pastor and Christian group leadership.
So many despise the simple, humble, and reachable pastor. They are extremely admiring of the unreachable, distant, glorious-appearing pastor.
This is ridiculous! It is exactly how to lose out on receiving the Lord because the Lord tends to come humbly and meekly. Because of this, many do not recognise Him.
May we all pray that God will help us make the right decisions in receiving the disciplers. We must ensure we pray about every and any kind of mentor who is actually representing the Lord. Be sure that this person is obviously a God-send, not because they claim to be.
We have to be really wary of those who ‘claim’ people; those who try to impose their authority over you, or to grab you from wherever you were and force you to submit to them.
There is the Elijah/Elisha discipleship dynamic that occurs once in a while, (where God sends someone to you whom you are to serve under, and you yield to them having discerned their grace and role towards fulfilling God’s calling over your life — Elisha immediately left everything and went to serve Elijah as the latter served the Lord; 1 Kings 19:19-21).
But generally, if you see people who go around capturing and claiming others to serve or follow them, all your alarms should go up. You should run away!
If you see people stride into your life with great braggadocio, be careful: they are likely claiming to come in the name of the Lord, like the Pharisees and Sadducees.
But if you have people who are sincere, not really placing demands on you while trying to assist you, you better receive wisdom and come under the leadership God has appointed for you — like the Israelites after 7 years.
The moment you do that, you’re going to observe great, evident changes.
