The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional (23 page)

Teach him to sow for good and not for evil, for right and not for wrong, for You and not for selfishness. Enable him to clearly understand the difference. Put a holy barometer in him that registers clearly in his spirit when he is tipping toward sowing in the flesh and not the spirit. Strengthen him so that he is strong enough to refuse discouragement, knowing that if he has sown well, Your harvest of blessing is guaranteed for the future. Help him to not grow tired of waiting for the harvest.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

42

Flee sexual immorality.
Every sin that a man does is outside the body,
but he who commits sexual immorality
sins against his own body.

1 C
ORINTHIANS
6:18

S
EXUAL SIN IS WORSE
than other sins because it has consequences in our own body. Being that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that means sexual sin of any kind—even in the mind—causes great conflict within us, for how can dark live alongside light? One of the ways to avoid sexual temptation is to stay close to God and His Word. The other is not to neglect the sexual needs of your spouse. Sexual intimacy is an important way to bring unity into your marriage. Joining your hearts, minds, and bodies breaks down any stronghold of separation between you and reaffirms your oneness.

Your husband most likely is out working in the world where a spirit of lust is everywhere. He needs your prayers for protection and the strength to resist it when it presents itself. The same is true for you too. It is dangerous to think that sexual failure cannot happen to you or your husband in a moment of weakness or vulnerability—even if it is only in the mind. Thoughts have consequences, and that’s why God tells us to take every thought captive. We have to take charge of our mind in order to stay undeceived. There is no safe place where infidelity, or the idea of it, cannot reveal itself as an option.

If infidelity has already happened to one of you, ask God for His healing and restoring power to work a miracle of deliverance, forgiveness, and restoration in both of you. And get help. This is too big an issue to go through alone.

Ask God to enable you and your husband to see to it that this important area of your life is not polluted by neglect, selfishness, busyness, or the inability to keep your eyes from evil. Seek God for the strength to flee sexual sin—even if you think this can never happen to you. That story is way too familiar.

My Prayer to God

L
ORD
, I pray You will help my husband and me to resist sexual temptation of any kind, even in the mind. Strengthen us so we will not surrender to the lust of the world that strives to keep us dissatisfied with what we have. Protect us from being lured to look and wonder, or to succumb and wander. Help us to flee at the first sign of any possibility of sexual sin and run immediately to You. Give us eyes to see what is truly happening even
before
it happens so that we can avoid the deception of immorality. Teach us how to maintain control over our own body, mind, and soul so that we are ever mindful of the purity You want us to live in (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).

Where either of us has fallen into sexual immorality in the past—even if only in the mind—I pray You would set us completely free from the severe bondage of that. Work a miracle of restoring trust and forgiveness between us. Only You have the power to free us from the debilitating sense of betrayal and can restore us to a new beginning. Keep us both strong in faith, in self-control, in Your Word, and in Your presence so that sexual sin is never a part of our future.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

43

Let each one of you in particular
so love his own wife as himself,
and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

E
PHESIANS
5:33

G
OD MAKES IT CLEAR
that a wife is supposed to respect her husband. Having respect is crucial to a man. It’s important for a wife to
receive
respect from her husband too, but perhaps it is mentioned here specifically as a wife’s responsibility because we women can forget to show it. This same verse instructs the husband to
love
his wife. Could it also be that a husband may easily neglect to show the love his wife needs? It’s not that he doesn’t love her; it’s just that he forgets to show it. Love and respect for each other in a marriage are definitely the will of God, and the will of God is something we always need to pray about.

It is very damaging for a man to not be respected, just as it is damaging for a woman to not feel loved. You may greatly respect your husband, but if you do not deliberately show it, he may feel that you don’t. Respect can be diminished in one major incident, or it can be eroded over time. Be diligent to see that neither of these happens to you. If it already has, ask God to help you regain proper respect for your husband, and in the meantime be able to treat him with the respect God wants you to have. The respect issue is such an enormous one that you cannot let it slide. A husband needs respect from his wife, and if she can’t or won’t show it, he may try to find it elsewhere.

Pray that there is a free exchange of love and respect in your marriage, because neither of you will do well without that affirmation. Ask God to show you ways your husband needs to be built up with assurance of your respect for him, both for who he is and what he does. Your respect makes him feel valued, and that is a great investment in the longevity and health of your marriage.

My Prayer to God