Walking as One, For the One

Bible Verse: Acts 18:1-3

 ¹ After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³ and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. 

Some married couples know how to live life, is that you?  Are you and your spouse serving Christ as one?  Walking together in mind, soul, and spirit?  Priscilla and Aquila complimented each other; they capitalized on each other’s strengths, to form an effective team for our Savior Jesus Christ.  If you’re constantly battling, and/or butting heads with your spouse, how can you have an effective marriage?  We read in Matthew 7:5:

“Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

So, if we base our marriage ministry on this alone, how much then can we teach others if we do not have a great marriage, serving and submitting to one another?  We can’t.  You need to be an effective team.  You need to operate as one, like Priscilla and Aquila.  They are never mentioned separately in the Bible.  In marriage and in ministry, they operated as one.  Don’t let the ways of the world cloud your perception on how marriage is to be.  These two individuals are used in the Bible for a reason, to demonstrate the perfection of ministry in marriage.

Priscilla and Aquila met Paul on his second missionary journey.  Priscilla and Aquila have just been expelled from Rome.  Their home was as movable as the tents they made.  They opened their home to Paul, where Paul taught them wealth and spiritual wisdom.  Think about that, Paul the one who wrote a great portion of the Bible is living with you and is teaching you about wealth and spiritual wisdom.  What a great experience they must have had!  But we too can be like Priscilla and Aquila, inviting Jesus to live with us.  Let Him through His infinite wisdom teach us.  How awesome is that?

We need to dive into the word of God and let it change who we are.  Let the wisdom of God stitch itself to who we are, so we wear it like a beautiful colorful robe, like the one Jacob gave his son.  In the same manner that he wore it, to show the love his father had for him, we too should wear our robe of righteousness, our robe of wisdom, and knowledge to show how much God loves us.  To show those who are unsaved, to show them how much God loves them, Priscilla and Aquila did this in their lives.  Walking as one, for the One, wearing that wisdom and knowledge that they learned from Paul.  We can learn from Paul as well, for he did in-fact write the Word of God.

Priscilla and Aquila also heard great messages from Apollo, but realized his messages were lacking.  So they brought him to their home and taught him what was right and true according to what they had learned from Paul.  So we too can be the same kind of instruments, like Priscilla and Aquila, seeking out people we run into, or people we may know, who just don’t know the whole truth.  Sometimes we meet people who have a sense of the ways of Jesus, but just don’t truly know the whole truth.  That is where we are ambassadors for Jesus, His true followers who wear His spiritual coat of wisdom and knowledge.  We can stand up and speak up, and in a loving way share what we have been taught.  Priscilla and Aquila warmly welcomed people into their home where they trained and worshiped.  They trained people, so they too could be spokespersons for our Lord and our King Jesus.

We need to be diving into our word every day, studying scripture, and letting it speak to us.  This is how we will learn to be more like Christ.  We need to remove ourselves from this corrupt world and recognize the devil and his tactics.   Let’s answer some questions:

Questions:

What can I do to have a deeper relationship with the Lord?  Get to know Him through reading the Word of God and through prayer and worship, commit your ways to Him, seek Him in all things and seek Him first.

Do I submit to my spouse like I am commanded to?  We see in Ephesians 5:21-30:

^{21 “}Submit yourselves to one another because of your reverence for Christ.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your husband as to the Lord. ²³ For a husband has authority over his wife just as Christ has authority over the church; and Christ is himself the Savior of the church, his body. ²⁴ And so wives must submit themselves completely to their husbands just as the church submits itself to Christ.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. ²⁶ He did this to dedicate the church to God by his word, after making it clean by washing it in water, ²⁷ in order to present the church to himself in all its beauty—pure and faultless, without spot or wrinkle or any other imperfection. ²⁸ Men ought to love their wives just as they love their own bodies. A man who loves his wife loves himself. (²⁹ None of us ever hate our own bodies. Instead, we feed them, and take care of them, just as Christ does the church; ³⁰ for we are members of his body.”

This, unfortunately, is very difficult in today’s society.  So my suggestion is to remove your mind from the world’s viewpoints and stick to the scriptures.  Humble yourselves and submit to one another as it is intended by God because He is very clear in His Word how this is to be done.  I can attest to this as factual.  My wife and I do as the scripture is written and the results are as expected, a beautiful display of oneness in Christ, completely complementary to one another, with all eyes on the Savior.  I have a few questions for everyone:

• Do I serve my spouse? This answer falls under serving one another.  Do we think of them first or is everything about us?  It’s much easier to humble yourself and serve each other than only thinking about yourself and neglecting one another.  That is the recipe for disaster, we must be as one while serving the One.
• Is my house in order?  Scripture tells us I have no ministry unless it is.  We must have order in our homes, with Jesus as the cornerstone, wives submitting to their husbands, husbands submitting to their wives, and their children respecting and honoring their parents.  This beautiful Union is what brings peace, joy, and happiness to a family
• As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  Is this statement true for your home?  We must make sure as parents that we are serving the Lord Jesus and our home reflects our beliefs.  I have seen far too many Christian homes that allow sin to infiltrate, whether it be through the TV, the internet, our friends, our activities, how we speak, and our children’s actions.  We have to think what if Jesus was sitting on our couch, at our table, or maybe at our computer.  We must guard ourselves as well as our children from the clutches of the devil

Goals:

• Meditate in your Word daily.  Joshua 1:8
• Submit to one another. Ephesians 5:21
• Have your home serving the Lord and in order.  1 Timothy 3:5 For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?
• Keep your family from conforming to the ways of the world.
• Romans 12:2, 1 John 2:15-16
• Train up your children. Proverbs 22:6

And remember the key to a great successful marriage is to:

Walk as One, For the One as

Priscilla and Aquila did.