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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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All right brothers, welcome back to Thursday of this week's Daily Blade. We've been talking about what we were meant to cultivate like. How do we use, how do we bring our unique strength to bear on the world in ways that fill our soul and let us step into all that God created us to be about? And so so far we've talked about cultivating a sense of self. We've talked about cultivating a brotherhood like we need those brothers. And then now, today, I want to talk about cultivating a marriage.

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Proverbs 18.22 says a man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. And so if you're a young single buck listening to this right now, I think this, as well as many other passages in the scriptures, would encourage you to find a woman who loves the Lord, pursue her and get married. I know all the trends right now are wait until you're established, wait until you got your act together, wait until you've got your 401k built. I think all of that is crap. The Bible says you find a wife, you find a good thing and you're going to receive favor from the Lord. Now a couple of little notes there. One she needs to be a woman who fears the Lord, loves him, sees the strength in you and would be a great partner in gospel, work all the days of your life. But seek this out A good wife, according to Proverbs 31, is more precious than jewels, bro. It is a gift from God on high. You will find favor If you're listening to this and you already have a wife.

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Then Ephesians 5 gives us the work of cultivation. This starts in verse 25. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies loves himself, for no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of his body.

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So what's the work of cultivation in marriage, brothers? The first thing we see in the text is sacrificial love, like a laying down of life, creating, with self-sacrifice, opportunities for our wives to thrive in their giftings and callings. We see here spiritual direction. I hate that God's putting this weight on you, but I believe you can fulfill it. You will set the spiritual direction of your home, not your wife. Some of you are being too passive here. Men will set the spiritual climate of their homes. It's just how God meant it to be. You probably experienced this, even in discipline, where your wife might have to tell a kid 30 times. You just have to tell them once and they jump. You set the spiritual direction. Are you praying with your wife? Are you leading her into spiritual truth?

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And then, lastly, we cultivate in marriage with physical care. I don't mean, brothers, that you have to provide your wives anything they want, but rather you're to provide the best of your ability food, shelter and work for the health of your wife. And so I don't want to get all jammed up here in weird arguments about who needs to be the primary breadwinner, like if your wife's making bank, praise God, the Proverbs, 31 woman made bank and she's not told to go home right, like no, no, no, you just can't spend your days playing video games. And I'm not even saying don't play video games, I'm saying, brother, you are meant to work, not rest. You are meant to provide, not be provided for.

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And so this physical care component in cultivation is like look, we've got a good home, we eat, we've got good food. I'm setting the spiritual direction of my home. And so if you're sacrificial love, spiritual direction and physical care, and then you got time to pop on Call of Duty and slay some fools for three hours and then go to sleep and wake up and do it again, praise God, go get it. But we are meant to cultivate our homes, our wives, as part of this bigger work of cultivation. So remember, cultivate self, cultivate brotherhood, cultivate a wife, one more, and then I want to get to keep.

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Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.