FAITHFUL HUSBANDS

FAITHFUL HUSBANDS

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. —Ephesians 5:21-33

First we are to be in submission to each other as followers of Jesus. But the wife is to be in submission to her own husband. As a follower of Jesus the husband is head of his wife. He is the protector, defender, nourisher, giver, clinger and lover of his wife. He is the leader of the home and better make sure that he himself is following Jesus. Otherwise he will be leading his wife and family wrongly. He is to be nourishing his wife through the Word of God and so had better understand what God is saying through His Word before he seeks to have a positive impact on his wife.

The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. So if the husband does not have a good grasp on how Jesus loves the church then he will not have a good grasp on how he is to love his wife. He will have a faulty view regardless of how “nice” he appears to be as a person. The husband that leads his wife away from being part of a local church is a husband in great error. Jesus died for the church which is everyone who has truly trusted Jesus. The local church is to be considering “how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25). If a husband is missing these basic priorities Jesus gave the church, the bridegroom to the bride, then he will not be leading his wife properly.

Husbands, we have a huge responsibility before our Lord God Almighty to be loving and leading our wives correctly. May we be doing so!

Dear Father, help me to be the husband that You desire me to be. Please show me where I am failing and give me the power and wisdom through Your Spirit and in the authority of Your Son to be transformed as You desire. May it be so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLX83HbefrI