From the beginning of time husbands have struggled with hardness of heart towards our wives because from the beginning of time we have not sought God with all of our hearts and have not understood how our hearts have to be cultivated and cleansed from sin and defilement on a regular basis

In a marriage, Jesus’s law or expectation is that the more mature and healthy spouse will fight for her/his fallen spouse knowing that part of being in a marriage is bearing the burden of their spouse.

"....the clear testimony in scripture is that while rewards perhaps should not be our primary motivation for serving God, looking for and expecting rewards is a legitimate Biblical motivation for persevering and laying our lives down for Christ and for the brethren and for the lost."

"We fathers need observances built in to our everyday life with the people of God so we will not allow the pressures and responsibilities of life to overwhelm us and distract us from instructing and reminding our children of God’s great mercy in saving and delivering us."

So clearly both from Jesus’s practice and from His commands to His disciples as seen above He always had a heart for the Gentiles and expected His church (and Israel) to be His instruments to bring salvation and wholeness to them.

".... God has always purposed – first through Israel – and now through the church and still through Israel – to make Himself known to all the peoples of the earth."

In Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit via the blood of Christ we can be clean and pure in His sight. It is up to we fathers to walk this out and help our wives and children walk it out as well.

You and I cannot be appropriately responsive to the Living God who is constantly moving and speaking if we are spiritually dead. No amount of good works or religious busyness will turn this around. Our spiritual state or inner condition must be changed from outside of us.

A man made idol is simply that – a man made idol. But the practice of putting one’s trust or security in or deriving one’s pleasure or satisfaction from that idol is inspired and orchestrated by demons. And believers must be sober about this reality.

Whenever adults practice idolatry, children will eventually be the casualty of such.