Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Power Walk Ministries broadcast with author and speaker Reverend Paul Cannings. Our current series is titled Relationships, Marriage, and Family. Reverend Cannings brings this teaching from Ephesians chapter five, addressing the relationships in a family and their connectedness to God. He challenges us all to live in the fullness of God, encouraging us to not look at others to compare ourselves, but to pursue Christ wholeheartedly. Here's Pastor Cannings now with the message, Guidelines for Families.

Dr. Paul Cannings: In verse 14, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father." He's talking about the fact that this stuff was a mystery. I could not understand what God was saying and the Spirit of God had to expose it to me, and now I'm finally getting it. If I come to this, I let Christ be Lord, we could now have family. But if I don't get him, family's not happening even in the church house.

Watch this progression carefully. He says that he may grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man. You can master through any marriage when Christ is Lord. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to the fullness of God.

By the time I get married, I'm into the fullness of God and he's saying you can't get there if you don't take church seriously. It's like I want to get healthy, but I've got to start taking some things seriously, how I eat, how I exercise. I've got to take things very seriously to get the health. If I want to become a mathematician, I have to take a process seriously to get to that process in a schoolhouse so I become a mathematician. He's saying, "Hey, I will fill you up with this knowledge, but you can't happen outside of a church house," and I'll show it to you.

That's why you've got churches and he keeps building churches. He's trying to grab you, but people don't have time for church. Why? He is not Lord. Look at this, he says the pastor has to equip the saints, counseling ministry, prayer ministry, all these ministries have to be there to build up the people so that we function in unity, not fighting one another to get what? Look at verse 13 of chapter four, "Of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure and the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ." You can't get there without a church.

In chapter three he says you can arrive at the fullness of God, but the process to get there is the local church. If you don't do it, guess what happens? You listen to all kind of false doctrine and he's not Lord. Look at it right there in verse 14. He says as a result, we are no longer to be children. We don't grow up without this. We stay children: fussing, fighting, biting, getting against each other's nerves. "This is mine, this is yours," like kids. So husbands and wives, "This is my money, this is your money. These are my kids, these are not your kids." It's bickering, bickering because they are what? Kids. They didn't grow up. They grew up physically but not spiritually.

So guess what? Now they're listening to anything because he's not Lord. Tossed here, there, waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. Anytime somebody sounds good, because he's not Lord, one person in a marriage believes this, another person in a marriage believes that. And so, "Why I got to listen to you? That's not what I heard." And so now, because the wife wasn't focused on her own husband and he wasn't focused on God, they can't come together.

That's why it's not until you get to verse 23 when he talks to the man having Lord as Lord, then he talks to the woman about coming under. You all mess up when you come under somebody who ain't listening to God. Stop blaming God because he loaded you up to be able to do this. Let me read you one more verse where he loaded you up and then he's going to help you become full of God. I just got to get you to submit to my process of getting you there.

I never forget I was a second-year student at Dallas Seminary and a person approached me. I went to his church at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. I went to his church and I didn't know he was a professor at seminary until I walked in the seminary and I go, "Hey!" He goes, "Yeah, you didn't know I was a professor at seminary?" I said, "No." So I walked into him after my second year. He looks at me and he says, "Hey Paul, come here." I said, "Yes, sir." "Our church has set aside money for you to plant a church in Sherman, Texas, and we want to influence that process but we want to do it through an African American." I said, "Okay, sounds good."

I go to my mentor because the Bible says seek godly advice in every decision you make. So I go to my mentor, Martin Hawkins. I said, "Martin, hey man, this guy wants to plant a church, take care of my family, I'll move down to Sherman, he would make sure I come back to Dallas Seminary and get..." He said, "No. Don't do it." I said, "What do you mean? I got, I'm two years in." "Man, you don't know nothing." I'm sorry, that's how Martin talks. He don't mean no harm. You get to know Martin, it's just Martin. Everybody knows that's just Martin, he ain't trying to hurt your feelings. "You don't know nothing. You think you do. You finished your Greek and Hebrew classes yet? No. Okay, well, there you go. Don't do it." I wouldn't be here today if I had just taken the money and run.

What I'm saying with that is that sometimes even when we have a high knowledge base, when a person sees Christ as Lord, they're always trying to make sure that whatever decision they're thinking about finds godly advice. Because at the end of the day, they want to do what God says. So they never keep doing anything but saying, "God, teach me your way." That's what David would say.

The problem we have in relationship is that Christ is not Lord, our feelings are. Our way of thinking is. Our bad experiences are. What we've been through in the past of an old marriage is. He's not Lord. So when we come to his relationship that needs his guidelines to operate in, like we do in any company we go work for. We walk into the company, it's their guidelines, it's what they're saying that we do and bring our skill level to it. We're not doing that with God. We're not even learning the skill level, but we want to come to his institution and say, "God, why this didn't work?" God says you didn't even want to learn the skill level to come into my institution to work it and expect good results.

Look back to chapter five. He brings in this word headship. He's setting this up. I don't like reading "submission" in verse 22. It's not in the Greek text. They're putting it in there to help the structure to flow, but I'd rather just flow with what's there. So watch this carefully when he says this. He says in verse 23, "For the husband is the head of the wife." First he says, "Submit to your own husband as to the Lord." He didn't say God, "As to the one who has authority, who died for your sins, rose from the dead, and should be Lord of your life." That one.

Then he comes to the husbands and he says, "Husband," not man, not male, "Husband is the head of the wife." Why would he use the word head? Go to chapter one. He didn't say that the husband is the dictator of the wife. So I had to learn this because I grew up hearing, "I'm the head of the house. I'm the head of the house." I'm going, "Hmm, what does that word head really mean?" You would think that means I run everything. But he didn't say I run everything, he said head.

I'm just a part of what this is. Since I got to instruct the kids and discipline the kids, I'm here. Most men are here. Their wife and them can have an argument, and when she walks by to go to the restroom, he don't even remember what the argument was about because a man is up here. The reason why God makes the man up here, and that's why he teaches the man first, is because the man has to go to war. He can't think about, "Bambi looks nice." Bambi got to die. I got to feed a family.

I actually saw this when my kids were growing up. One of them, since it's my job to discipline and my wife is the helper, we worked out together how the kids would be disciplined. And that is first we got to teach them what they're going to be disciplined for. You can't just go whip a kid. Got to teach them first. So when we taught them the information first, then we created a structure to make sure that information is purposefully not being obeyed.

The structure about homework had to do with no television at night. So when you come home during the week from Monday to Thursday, there's no television. Structure to achieve discipline of homework. So we came through this structure and then the second thing is when they don't listen, is we warn them. In other words, you've got to know something is coming. So that's how the structure is.

Sometimes when this person broke the first two, they would go into this theater Oscar rendition of an act. "Oh, I'm so sorry, please." And so my wife would just go, "He gets it, baby, he gets it. It's going to be okay. He gets it." And I'm going, "No, no, no, no. He got the information, he got a warning, and I gave him actually two warnings. He didn't listen, so he's in the fire."

In the midst of all of this, the reason why God put this head there is because the child needs to have an experience of tenderness. The woman's skin is naturally tender. The woman breastfeeds if she chooses to. There's a lot of nurturing over here. That's why when he says love your wives, nurture her. Why you nurturing her? Because she's got to nurture the kids. He's not just saying nurture her because you want to treat her special. No, you're trying to build a house and you've got to nurture the nurturer. So he's saying the reason why this nurturing is going to take place is because the kid gets to see discipline and nurturing. He's balancing it.

Guest (Male): Amen, Pastor Cannings. It's so important to understand the structure of headship. Thanks for sharing how the husband, wife, and children are to come under the complete headship of Jesus Christ. Friend, I hope you will take a few minutes to visit us online at powerwalkministries.org to learn more about our ministry and to browse through our resources. Again, that's powerwalkministries.org. In particular, I encourage you to purchase Pastor Cannings' book, Giving Fear a Knockout Punch. It provides strategies to truly say goodbye to the fears you want to overcome. You're welcome to call us as well at 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402.

Dr. Paul Cannings: A few years ago some friends of mine, pastor friends, came to me and challenged me to start Power Walk. And by faith we stepped out. Yes, folks, God has grown it, he's developed it because of the sacrifices we are willing to make. But in the midst of it, we recognize it costs and it would be good for us to develop partners who would share in this ministry so that it reaches the potential God has for it. We'd love for you to look at our website, www.powerwalkministries.org, and see all the things that we are seeking to do for the glory of God. Become our partner and be a part of what God is doing. I know God will bless you.

Guest (Male): And we'd like to tell you how much we appreciate your prayers and financial support of Power Walk. Our needs are ongoing, so would you make a financial contribution today? You can do so by calling us at 281-260-7402 or log on to powerwalkministries.org. If you'd prefer to write us, our mailing address is Power Walk Ministries, P.O. Box 920517, Houston, Texas 77092. Thank you so much for partnering with us. And now remember, God ordained the institution of marriage with purpose. And when each member functions according to the role that he calls us to fulfill, we'll experience unity and harmony in our homes.