Friday March 23, 2012

Read Ephesians 5:25-33

 

There's been a lot of negative press over the last 75 years about the negative plight and bad treatment of women, especially in marriage. Some of that press is warranted. Some of it is purely hype and sensationalism. If Christian men were upholding their end of the marriage covenant as God deemed it, I suspect that no one would be complaining.

 

Even the most cursory reading of vs 25 is challenging and confronting. Husbands are called to love their wives as Jesus loved the church. And we’ve all read in the Bible how Jesus came down to earth after 7 hard days at work demanding to be served dinner, demanding sexual fulfilment and demanding to have free time in front of the TV!!!! Jesus loved the church with His very life. He suffered and died for the church. He gave His everything, His all, for the church. Jesus gave up His very life for the church. This is the mark or quality of love that husbands are called to have for their wives. If every Christian husband were to love their wife like this, the negative arm of the women’s liberation movement would be silenced almost immediately.

 

As we read further on, we see that husbands are called to create an environment where their wives can grow to be holy and blameless, pure and spotless.  A husband is to make sure that his wife grows and matures and reaches her full potential. She is far more than a glorified house keeper. A husband is to deny himself so that his wife can radiate and shine spiritually, emotionally and physically.

 

When you think about the suffering and trial that Jesus endured on earth you begin to realise the way that a husband is to treat his wife. Together a husband and wife have a beautiful opportunity to display the relationship between Jesus and His church. Marriage is a living parable of how much God loves the world.

 

 

Prayer:

¥ Marriage is under attack in our world. There are desires to change the definition of marriage so as to remove the condition of marriage being between ‘one man and one woman’. Once this boundary is gone, marriage to children (which is illegally practiced in many countries) and marriage to animals (hence bestiality) will quickly become legal and acceptable. Pray that the Lord will not let this change be passed. Pray that Christians will unite and stand together on this marriage issue. Pray for a loud and clear message to be sent to leaders across the world from Christians standing together.

¥ Pray that God would convict husbands to be loving their wives as Christ loved the church. Pray that we would see our marriages displaying the love of Christ to a broken and hurting world and that many would come to Christ as a result.