Scripture
Our verse for today comes from Ephesians 5:28, ” So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. “
Background
I was praying recently, and like many of you do for your own, I was thanking God for the wonderful wife that I have. I thanked Him for loving me so much that He would bless me with a wife so much better than I deserve. I thanked Him for her unconditional love, her patience and grace, and how she never stops showing me her love and commitment to me. And then I began assessing my love for her, and I saw it in a light that I had never seen it before. God tells us to love our wives just as Christ loved the church, but now I saw this picture in a completely new way. He doesn’t want me to love her just so I can copy Him. He doesn’t say to give myself for Her so that I can follow His example. He tells me to love her this way because I am supposed to be Jesus to her. I am supposed to manifest Christ to her in the way I love her. The image she gets of her Heavenly Father is dependent on how I manifest Him to her through my love. I’m not just following a good example, I am fully representing Jesus to her.
Application
So, what kind of God am I showing her? Who am I asking her to follow? Unfortunately, that’s not a good visual. I bring to her the image of a God who is impatient, judgmental, self-righteous, conditional, combative, and
demanding. A God who can love one minute and argue the next. So is it any wonder when she loses her patience with the children? That’s what I’ve shown her that God is like. Is it surprising when she wants to judge someone unfairly? It goes right along with the God I bring into our home. The picture I too often show is not that God loves her so much, but that God doesn’t care too much for her, that He’s more interested in other things. And I never even realized it. She has shown me a pretty good God, and I now pray that I might show her a good God, too. So if your spouse struggles in a particular area, maybe you need to look at what image of Christ you are projecting. Perhaps it’s the only vision of the Father that they have received, and it could be a really poor one. Love them for Christ, as Christ, and thank Him for who He has given you.
Charge
As we seek Him today, strive to love your spouse as if you were Christ loving His own body. And if you are single, pray you’ll stay single until you can love like this.
DOWNLOAD this story as audio …… or ……. LISTEN to this story now
Rich Holt / Originally Published on : BCWorldview.org
Also published on : Medium.com.
