The Joy of Family. There are many things that God gives us as daily Bread and as 1st Article gifts. WE are given clothing and shoes, food and drink, land, animals, government, good weather, good reputation, good friends, good health, faithful neighbors, and the like. However, the greatest daily bread and 1st article gift we are given is a godly spouse and delightful children, in which we rejoice daily because of the love they give to us and the love we are given to give to them. Family is one of my greatest joys because God has given to me and sustains for me a Godly family in which I am loved and forgiven in Jesus Name. Family is a great delight because it gives us that concrete and immediate gift of loving our neighbor in all of their needs. I find joy in my family because they humble me and love me in spite of all the sins they know I have.

The key to a joyous family is a faithful marriage. When husband and wife love and honor each other, when the children given to them see this healthy and loving relationship, love abounds in the house. But how do a husband and wife have a faithful marriage? Is it just about being faithful to one another with their bodies, meaning they don't cheat on each other? Well, yes, that is a huge part of living a chaste life, meaning a life in which your body is no longer your own, but now, in marriage, belongs to your spouse. However, living a life physically for your spouse is not the only way of being faithful in marriage. St. Paul says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.²⁸ In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband" (Ephesians 5:22-33). Being faithful means living in the vocations in which Christ Jesus has placed us. Jesus places the husband as Himself, being the one that sacrifice, presenting his wife as pure, unblemished, beautiful woman, the perfect love of his life whom he sacrifices for on a daily basis with much joy. In response to this sacrificial love, the wife, who is the image of the church, receives the love and protection of her husband and reacts with respect and subordination, meaning she supports her husband and speaks well of him as a good and gentle man. However, the issue is that both husband and wife are sinners, meaning they love themselves more than their spouse, and because of this, the relationship asserted by St. Paul is not one that comes naturally, but rather is a gift only the Holy Spirit can give. Only in a life of daily repentance and forgiveness can husbands love their wives and can wives respect their husbands. Only in covering each other in the righteousness of Jesus can husbands and wives live in faithful marriages and love each other. Only in the reception of Christ's gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation as given in the means of grace can husbands and wives love each other and then love any children that Jesus blesses the union with. Husbands and wives love in the midst of the highest happiness and in the deepest despair. Husbands and wives love each other in the happiest of days, and in the heaviest crosses they bear together. Joy lasts in a marriage because Jesus grants the gift of forgiveness in both the good days and the bad. Jesus grants His love to a marriage everyday in His Word; therefore, it is essential that husbands and wives be in devotion together, pray together, and absolve one another to spite the devil and that love may abound daily. May our Good Lord continue to grant us good and faithful marriages, that husbands and wives may find joy in each other and rejoice in their life together as they receive the gifts of the cross.

Peace be with you. May the devil be silenced, the world be hushed, and the Old Adam be drowned anew so that you may hear only the voice of your Savior Jesus who says, "I love you. I forgive you. I claim you as My own forever," Amen.

Jesus' Sheepdog,

Pastor Hull