Power Walk Ministries

Announcer: Thanks for joining us for today's Power Walk Ministries broadcast, featuring author and speaker Reverend Paul Cannings. Today is the final message in this series titled Relationships, Marriage, and Family. We see so much division all around us, and the crux of the problem is that individually we are not connected to God. Pastor Cannings challenges us to submit our lives to God and to see what relational healing can take place. Here he is now with the message, Reconnecting with God.

Paul Cannings: Love in the marriage is where he has to die. He's commanded to love you; you are told to love your husband. It shouldn't be a big problem because if he's breathing spiritual growth into the home, the fruit of the spirit is what? Love. In chapter five, verse one, he says, "Therefore be imitators of God, beloved children, and walk in love."

Both people are walking in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us as an offering, a sacrifice to God. And Rome says you should all be like this. But people are going to get into the flesh. Verse three. And because they're going to get into the flesh, somebody has to keep the order in the home. So I'm going to make the man the head of the house, and I'm going to command him to love even though everybody should be loving.

Because he has to keep the breath of God in the house. He's Christ in the house. So he tells the man, this is how he loves. And technically, woman, there's nothing erotic about it. You all want the bachelor stuff and the bachelorette stuff, Hollywood stuff. What did they prove to us they got? Nothing. Seven marriages. They trade each other in and out.

What are they saying that is actually better than God? We want love to be erotic, and God is saying love is me. God is love. You can't arrive at love if you don't come to me. And if you can't love your wife, you didn't love me first. To love the Lord all your heart, your soul, and your mind is to love your neighbor as yourself. Your neighbor could be anybody.

If you can't love somebody, the person you don't love is God. So here's a few things I'll tell you. Here's the first thing: in verse 25, he says, "husbands, love your wives." It just commands them. How could you command somebody to love a person you just bought as a woman? Your parents put together.

So he has to tell them, he has to command them because they made their wives slaves. That's how they made their wives in Roman culture. Not just Jewish culture, Roman culture; their wives were like slaves. 30-year-old men would marry 14-year-old girls. That's the culture. If I marry her young, when I get real old, she's still young.

Sorry, it's how they thought. It wasn't about her as a person. So that's why he's commanding it; you have to go to the background to understand why he's commanding, not suggesting. He says, "love your wives as Christ loved the church." He's back into the headship.

So that you might sanctify her. In other words, when you've finished loving her, she should be more and more and more like Christ and less and less of the world. If she's still longing for the world, you're not really washing her well.

Cleansing her by the washing of water with the word. That's why the word cleanses her from all of her parents did to her. Her mama was not some stepfather did certain things. People abused her. All of these things you end up cleansing her from. That's the word sanctified and cleansed. After a while, she's yours.

Because you did it this way, you can get all that impurity that once put her in bondage out of her if you did it my way. So she doesn't come to your bedroom from rape. She doesn't come to your bedroom from incest. She doesn't come to your bedroom from physical abuse and verbal abuse. Because you did it my way, I helped you to find a woman that's cleansed.

Watch this. So that he might present himself a church of glory. Look at verse 28, "loving." He goes to this holy and blamelessness. Matter of fact, guys, I tell you this, this is the one that scared me to death. My wife has a free will, but in heaven, when I arrive in heaven, guess who's going to ask me for her? When I arrive in heaven, he's going to say, "Yeah, Paul Cannings, let her know we're not starting with Living Word first. We're starting with Everette Cannings."

Let me show you how I see her. And I gave you headship over her. Who is she? We will stand before God as men for that. That's why he says help him. Lift him. The word respect means lift him, keep him high. That's why the Bible is saying give him honor. He's saying that because one day he's accountable for that house. So keep him high so you get raised up from where you've been: cleansed, washed, sanctified.

So that's why the word respect is there. It's not because he's better. The word respect is there so somebody can be high enough to lift you. But if you tear him down, who's going to do the lifting? The preacher? No, you're mad on Sunday. You don't even want to come to church.

It's his structure. I just get to lead it. It's not my structure. In verse 28, he says, "So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies." Okay, don't forget, I'm not a perfect guy. At times, my wife and I argue, and I've learned we're not going to agree on certain things.

So I just say, how do I love her in disagreement? That's the question I ask myself. How do I love this woman when we disagree and I want to be the man and tell her to follow me? But the Bible is saying headship is grace. I don't do what God wants me to do all the time, but his grace is sufficient.

So we're not going to always agree. But I do some things. I do things like, "No, no, no, baby. I don't want you at gas stations. I'm not going to take any risk on you." Matter of fact, when the kids were small, "Don't go near a gas station. I'll pump the gas. Just tell me when it's on E." But you should know when it's on E. "Nope, nope, you're sitting there staring right at it. Tell me when it's on E."

If I wash my car, I wash her car. I do different things to keep myself accountable to this. If I get sometimes people start to bless me, I take it home and say I wouldn't be who they think I am as a pastor if it wasn't for you. I split it.

In verse 28, he says, "Love her as your own body, as your own flesh, and cherish her, nourish her." That's where the erotic situations develop is in the nourishing and the cherishing. It's not as physical as we want to make it; it's a very spiritual process. But what brings the erotic issues in the home is when we get to those two words. When a woman feels nourished and cherished, she goes smack to her heart where she is made. And so she feels like I'm number one, I'm respected, I'm appreciated, I'm loved. And that's why she responds from her heart to the man.

So that the man would focus on Christ and the church. So when the erotic nature takes place in the bedroom, and if a woman in the bedroom is derogatory to her husband, oh man, when those things happen, the man has a hard time being head.

So that's why he brings back the headship after the nourish and the cherish. So the man feels like his woman enjoys him, so he feels lifted, like "I'm the man now! I'm ready to fight. What do you want me to fight?" He feels ready to do whatever because he finally got to the bedroom where it was exciting for both people.

So that's why he comes out like, "Let's do this! Come on, kids, let's go do this!" We have to reconnect. We have to reconnect because our disconnect is destroying the world. Our disconnect is destroying lives. Our disconnect is destroying communities, it's destroying our state. Our disconnect is destroying our country, and it's destroying our world. We have to reconnect.

You know, you could buy a brand-new refrigerator. You could put the best of the food in there. But one day I messed up and I forgot to turn the refrigerator on. I did. It's the truth. That's the first time I realized what is in food.

My wife and I went out of town. I fixed the back of the refrigerator, got it fixed, which was a miracle in her eyes. And I forgot to go and say 'on.' When we got back and opened the refrigerator, there were worms and flies and—do I have to explain it?

I literally had to take the refrigerator, put it in the back of a pickup truck, and just dump it and buy a whole new refrigerator, which was not good to our budget. The Bible says you could be married, but if you don't connect, everything from the past comes out. All the worms that were in your life, all of the flies that were in your life, all of the problems that you once had. As the marriage goes along, it all comes out and people argue and fight and fuss, and "You ain't doing this because my last husband," oh, we got all this stuff coming on. Or "My boyfriend, he would—no!" See, the flies come out, the worms come out. All of this comes out. So we take the refrigerator and do divorce. And the Bible is saying there's hope in me.

When you reconnect, I can cleanse. I can purify. I can take care of what you've got to reconnect.

Announcer: Thank you, Pastor Cannings. Yes, friends, when we see disunity in our relationships, our churches, our world, let's take stock of our own individual lives and reconnect in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Please take a few moments to learn more about Power Walk at powerwalkministries.org, or you can call us at 281-260-7402.

Paul Cannings: We do need you to partner with us, folks. You could do that in several ways. Yes, please pray for us. We travel, we train pastors and their wives, and do much in ministry. So pray for us; God keeps our health and strength and continues to bless this ministry by providing us His wisdom and knowledge and opportunities to serve Him. So pray for us. But we also can be involved in the ministry by participating on our website by buying books. It's a secure place, don't have to worry about anything being stolen from you, and I pray that you would participate that way. Another way, you could just become one of our partners, our supporters, and join with others who partner with us to see this ministry be what God wants it to be and desires it to be and has blessed it to be in the few years that God has allowed us to serve you. So I pray you would become our partner and be active in what God is doing in Power Walk Ministries.

Announcer: When you call or visit us online, would you consider making a one-time gift or signing up for an ongoing contribution to our ministry? We'd appreciate your gift of any size. You can do so when you go online at powerwalkministries.org or call 281-260-7402. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you for your support. And if you live in the Houston area or you're planning a visit, please join Reverend Cannings at Living Word Fellowship Church this Sunday. For church location and service times, visit lwfellowshipchurch.org. And now, as we close, remember to commit to God's word. Do what you can to reflect Christ in your life, your home, and your immediate sphere of influence, and see what God does with that.