Mentoring Men for the Master

PRACTICALLY!!! LOVING YOUR WIFE AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH

The 7 Ages of the Married Cold:

  1. “The first year.  “Sugar dumpling, I’m really worried about my baby girl.  You’ve got a bad sniffle and there’s no telling about these things with all this strep going around.  I’m putting you in the hospital this afternoon for a general checkup and a good rest.  I know the food’s lousy, but I’ll be bringing your meals from Rossini’s.  I’ve already got it arranged with  the floor superintendent.”
  2. The second year.  “Listen darling, I don’t like the sound of that cough.  I’ve called Doc Miller and asked him to rush over here.  Now you go to bed like a good girl, please, just for papa.”
  3. The third year.  “Maybe you’d better lie down, honey:  nothing like a little rest when you feel lousy.  I’ll bring you something.  Have you got any canned soup?”
  4. The fourth year.  “Now look, dear, be sensible.  After you’ve fed the kids, washed the dishes, and finished the floors, you’d better lie down.”
  5. The fifth year.  “Why don’t you take a couple of aspirin?”
  6. The sixth year.  “I wish you would just gargle or something instead of sitting around all evening barking like a seal.”
  7. The seventh year.  “For Pete’s sake, stop sneezing!  Are you trying to give me pneumonia?”[1]

The decline of marriage is a sign of the end time.  This sign is summed up in 2 Cor. 3:2, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves.”  We are witnessing in our day an overwhelming amount of self-centeredness, self indulgence, and self satisfaction.  This attitude is destroying marriages by the millions.  What is the answer to this devastating problem?  AGAPE LOVE – God’s kind of love.  This raises three questions:

  1. What Love Is Not. Love is not an emotion.  Love is not a feeling.  Love is not some “goose bump.”  Love is not deserved.
  2. What Love Is. God’s kind of love is an act of one’s will, an act of selfless sacrifice toward another to meet that persons needs, whatever they are, demanding no return.  Such love is the answer to the husband’s selfishness, for God’s kind of love “seeketh not its own interest” (1 Cor. 13:4).  And that kind of love has its beginning in the new birth (1 John 4:7-8) and is “poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).
  3. How Does God’s Kind of Love Behave in The Life of The Husband Toward His Wife? The answer is given by Paul in Ephesians 5:25-33.
    1. Generically, the operative word from the apostle is, “HUSBANDS LOVE YOURWIVES,” literally “Keep on Loving” (an imperative, present verb.
    2. Pratically, the operative word is, “As Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it.” There are 4 qualities of that Love:
      1. Sacrificial Love – Ephesians 5:25.  Christ loved the church enough to die for her.  Such sacrificial love is to mark the love of a husband and wife.  Christ did not die for us because we deserved it.  Neither is the husband to love his wife because she deserves it.  Christ did not love the church because He felt like it.  “He despised the shame” – Hebrews 12.2.  The husband does not love his wife because he feels like it.  The world says “When the feeling stops, your love is over, so walk away.”  :  Elizabeth Taylor to her 9th husband, “Don’t worry, my dear, I won’t keep you long.”  Fact:  The so-called “In Love” feeling lasts only two years.  Then half of married couples quit their marriage.  Scripture:  In John 13:34, Jesus gave this command to His disciples, “That you love one another as I have loved you.”  How had He loved them?  He had just washed their feet, not because He felt like it but because it was needed.  LOVE DOES NOT DO WHAT IT FEELS, BUT WHAT IS NEEDED.  “As long as  a man is looking for what can be personally gained from marriage, he will never experience the richness of self-giving and its amazing dividends” (John MacArthur).  When was the last time you made a sacrifice for your wife?  When was the last time you wanted to do a different thing but said, “Honey, I’m ready to do what you want to do.”  Where there is need, love acts sacrificially, and that’s the husband’s part in marriage.
      2. Sanctifying Love (Purifying) – Ephesians 5:26-27. Jesus purified the church (5:26-27). A husband’s love for his wife should be a purifying love.  The church and the believing wife are already cleansed from sin, but their feet needed washing (John 13:10), meaning as they walked in this evil world they tended to get dirty at points in their lives and needed a spiritual “feet-washing”.  And if a husband really loves his wife he seeks to keep her feet clean from the dust of the world, doing all he can to maintain her purity.  Love always seeks purity. Just as Jesus used the Word to keep the church clean (John 15:2,17:17) so the husbands are to lead their wives in “internalizing the Word” and applying it to their lives.  Also Jesus desired to present to Himself a glorious church  (5:27) “endodoxon – an intense splendidness,” the loving husband will live to make his wife beautiful in the eyes of God and of man.  When you see a truly radiant wife, you can know she has a truly loving husband.  When you see the opposite, you can know things are  not right on the home front.
      3. Caring Love – Ephesians 5:28-30. “So  ought men to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28).  We men spend a lot of time on our own bodies – exercising, eating the right food, wearing nice clothes, getting proper  We take care of ourselves and we should because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20).  AGAIN NOTICE that love is not an emotion.  When our bodies have needs we meet them.  Our wives have needs too, and we are God’s deputies to meet them.  And though love is not an emotion, joyful emotion will follow such meeting of a need.  Verse 29 expands on verse 28, “For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cheriseth it.  The word “nourisheth” is a marvelous word, ektrepho, which means “to feed.”  This enforces the principle that the man is to be the bread winner, the provider, the protector, the preserver of the home.  What did the church provide for her salvation?  Nothing.  Christ did it all.  As  Christ provides all for the church, so does a husband provide all for his wife.  No stronger word of warning is found in Scripture than 1 Timothy 5:8, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  Paul promises the church, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).  If you need love, joy, peace, wisdom, anything, He promises to meet your need – not your greed.  And God is telling us husbands to supply everything our wives need. The word “nourishes” is equally powerful.   (thalpei – cherishes ).  It means “to soften or warm  with body heat.”  Describes a mother bird as she sits on her nest.  Thus husbands are to provide the security, of comfort, of nourishment  their wives need and require.
      4. Lasting Love – “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be cleaved unto his wife” (Ephesians 5:31).  This if from Genesis 2:24.  Time has not changed the divine standard.  The word leave is kataleipo, which means  “abandon completely.”  The word “cleave” is proskallao, meaning “to glue something together forever.”  The idea is that you are to leave one thing and glue something new together.  It is a new relationship – you become one, and it is absolutely unbreakable.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT THAT MARRIAGE BE BASED ON THESE PRINCIPLES?   Because it is a picture of the church, a mystery not known in the past but now revealed.  The sacredness of the church is wed to the sacredness of marriage.  LISTEN CAREFULLY AND PRAYERFULLY:  Husbands, by your marriage you are either an affirmation or a denial of Christ and His church.”  How do you think God must feel when He looks down upon His church and sees it half divorced?  If the church is to survive and revive our dying culture, marriages must meet the divine standard.

Husbands, you will never really love your wives as Christ loved the church until you have sacrificed yourself, crucified yourself and died to self.  Will you?  If so you will know true blessedness and fulfillment.  Moreover, you will save your children, your church, your nation, your world.

And Don’t Forget:  It is the paramount purpose of MMM to encourage men to be “God’s Men” in their homes by “loving their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25).  I, beseech you, because of the mercies of God, to pray that I will be empowered and enlightened by the Holy Spirit to carry on this ministry and that you will understand that I can do so only if you will, by the infilling of the Holy Spirit, do all within your redeemed power to obey the “12 Absolute Life-Changers For Men – From the Book which cannot Lie.”

[1] John MacArthur, Jr.  “Husband’s Love Your Wives”, Fundamentalist Journal,  June 1985, pp. 34-35