Four Words for Men on Marriage

The four words that will change your marriage are “Husbands, love your wives.” And how are husbands to love their wives? As Christ loves the church. The apostle Paul wrote, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25 NKJV).

It’s kind of a tall order, isn’t it? God would never ask us to do something that He wouldn’t give us the strength to do. If a husband would just concentrate on this single truth, it literally would change his marriage.

Many marriages, if not most, are failing because men are not doing what God has called them to do. How did Jesus love the church? Sacrificially. Jesus laid His life down for us. He served people. On one occasion He got down on His hands and knees and washed the feet of His disciples, which included Judas Iscariot.

Jesus was a servant, and that is what we are to do. We are to love, but I think one of the problems is that we get our ideas about love from things like ridiculous movies. We need something better than that. We need God’s love. The definitive chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, tells us what love does: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (verses 4–8 NKJV).

Don’t wait for feelings. Don’t wait for the emotion of love. Just do loving things, and in time your emotions will catch up.