Prepare-for-War

partner. It may dent your ego to wait on your spouse in decisions, but it will be a safeguard against Satan's deception. The wife is to be a help-mate, not a doormat, and wives, you must recognize God's ordering in marriage and not go ahead ofyour husband. One of the biggest down-falls of Christian pastors today is the fact that they do not cultivate this sort of working rela tionship with their wives in the Lord's work. The constant temptation is to look outside of their marriage relationship for a partner in the Lord's work. How many doors are opened and how many pastors fall into the trap of adultery through disobedience to this principle. If you feel your wife is not "up to" this kind of spiritual activity, then your house is not in order and you had better spend time both in prayer and with your wife to bring about such a relationship. Other than the Lord, you are directly com manded by God not to put anyone before your spouse. This is a particular problem in the charismatic churches. Pastors have a very unfortunate tendency to put the prayer relationship of a female "intercessor" before their wife. God will not honor this! Many times, if I think the Lord is telling me to do some thing which is not covered in the Bible, and I have some hesitation about it, I simply pray silently (so that Satan will not know what I am praying about), asking the Lord to bring some confirmation to me one way or another. Then I drop it. I know the Lord has a very good memory. There is no need to waste more time on the issue. I do not talk to Elaine about these things, because I know that it is best to allow the Lord to do whatever is necessary. Sometimes the answer comes quickly, sometimes not for several months, sometimes never. But often, Elaine will suddenly say to me, "You know the Lord has been impressing so and so on my heart lately." And it will be the very thing that I was waiting for confirmation on. Most of my communication with the Lord is silent. Satan

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