Marriage for Men

For Men This is the Scriptural account of how a man should love his wife. Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it, Eph 5:26 that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, Eph 5:27 that He might present it to Himself as the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Eph 5:28 So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord loves the church. Eph 5:30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Eph 5:31 "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two of them shall be one flesh." Christ loved the church so much that He, being Lord, subjected Himself to the church as a servant, even to the point of death. The first command here is to love your wives as Christ loved the church. Be devoted to her to such an extent that you would be prepared to die for her. What is love? Love is two things. It is first an emotion or feeling that is described like this in www.dictionary.com A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair. Secondly, love is a choice. We all have days when emotions run dry and if love was entirely dependent on emotions, it may not last. My experience is that when the emotion is not there for whatever reason, I can choose to love. I can say to myself that I love my wife, and the emotion returns. That's not to say that I have stopped loving my wife, it's just that there are occasions when the emotion isn't foremost in my mind. This could happen for a number of reasons, such as stress, an argument, a death in the family, or something else that takes over your emotions, or maybe you're just having a bad day. The beautiful thing about love is that, if kept alive, it will grow and blossom with years. It will develop in maturity and become more precious with time. Gardens Remember that gardens only get covered with weeds through lack of attention. In the same way, love needs attention to keep it beautiful. Also, as with a garden, what you sow is what will grow. If you sow love, compassion, support, trust, time, friendship and patience you will have a very beautiful garden. Likewise, if you sow disharmony, distrust, impatience, intolerance, control and judgement then your garden will be a bed of misery. The more you give to your wife in the way of love, friendship, support, compliments, flowers etc, the more you show her how much she is appreciated and adored, the more beautiful she will become. Sanctify and cleanse her Sanctify and cleanse your wife by including her in your living relationship with God. As you spend time in fellowship with God together, your hearts will become one. If your relationship with God is not as it should be then this will be hard, but it is something you can work on together. Hopefully this page will be helpful if you need to build that relationship with God. Read the page together and make a plan to do the things mentioned. Plan a time that suits you both and though it may seem awkward to start with, it will open the doors to something beautiful that will be a foundation for your lives. Spots and wrinkles Above all else, it is sin that causes blemishes on our soul. We all have them, but God has told us that Phi 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ, There are times when spots and wrinkles in our wives will be obvious. They are usually pretty noticeable because they offend us in some way. Don't react! Step one is to make sure that we have pulled the plank out of our own eye! Verses 28 and 29 talk about us loving our own body and nourishing and cherishing it. Spiritually speaking, we need to make sure that our lives are right before God before we can minister with love to our wives. Pray for your wife. Ask God to give you wisdom as to how to deal with the matter so that the very best results are achieved and your wife is built up instead of being criticised or put down. Sometimes the answer may take a while to come, but as you pray for your wife (not against her) God will be working in her life and probably yours as well. It is a marvelous thing when you can remove a spot or blemish from your wife without her even realising it was ever there. She is uplifted and made to feel better about herself and will show the fruit of that. I remember one time when a friend offended me. I was really angry about it, but instead of reacting I went to God about it and asked for wisdom. Over the next week He ministered to me and showed me how to deal with the situation. Instead of going to my friend angrily and accusing her, I approached her quietly and told her that I was hurt by what she did. It was important to clarify that it was her actions that hurt me rather than pointing the finger at her. As a result she apologised and explained what had happened from her perspective. When she explained the events they didn't seem nearly as bad and our friendship ended up being stronger because of it. There are times when it is neccessary to apologise even when you don't think it's your fault because the other person often sees things differently and it opens the door to resolving an issue that would otherwise remain unresolved. It shouldn't be a lie, but perhaps you could appologise for how you're feeling towards the other person and this would give them the opportunity to respond. Communication starts and this is the start of finding the answer. The POWER of prayer There will be times when differences seem too big or too different to be resolved. Praying together is always a good option. Of course the enemy will try to prevent that from happening, but make an effort! If you both come before God and place the situation in His hands, two things are likely to happen. First it will become His problem instead of yours, thereby taking tension out of the situation. Secondly He will provide an answer which will most likely be very different from anything either of you had thought of, but both can be happy with. What about submission? Forget it! God never said to men "make your wife submit". Submission is more about her attitude towards you than her obeying your every command. If your wife has to be told to, or made to submit, then she is not in submission and will find it very hard to find that place. Her submission to you will come from her heart if you prepare the way. This is done by making her life so wonderful that she will love you for it. Her submission to you is nothing to do with you and is not for you to enforce. It is between her and God and, as I said before, it is about her heart attitude towards you rather than her obedience. If the relationship between husband and wife is not good, then someone needs to make changes. Jesus, who is Lord of all submitted himself to the cross for the church. If anyone needs to start making changes, it is the husband, even if he perceives himself to be in the right! Love your wife even when the going gets tough. Love her in obedience to God if you can't do it any other way. Make the choice to love her so much that God can not hold you to blame for anything that is wrong in your relationship. Forgiveness Joh 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. And so it should be with us. Be quick to forgive before the enemy can sew seeds of bitterness or destruction. When God forgives us we are told that Psa 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. We should also forgive in such a way that the offence is completely forgotten and remembered no more. If you really love someone, you tend to see the good in them rather than the bad. If love has grown cold over the years, ask God to give you His love for your wife. There is no greater love. Be Bold Very often men slip into the role of letting their wives make all the decisions and basically run the house and/or family. This is usually a role that women feel uncomfortable with and it is my experience that they appreciate a man who will take the lead, not in a dominating way, but with love and integrity. Take responsibility for your family and think about what you can do to bless them. A day out perhaps, or make a decision to go out to a certain restaurant for tea. God has given you a natural ability to lead your home. If you haven't already done so, pick up the responsibility and ask God to help you and give you the wisdom to be the man that He created you to be. Remember that leadership, tempered with love, consideration and a servants heart will give security to your wife and family. Feedback on this page is welcome. Please email me.
Back

For Men

This is the Scriptural account of how a man should love his wife.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it,
Eph 5:26 that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word,
Eph 5:27 that He might present it to Himself as the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28 So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord loves the church.
Eph 5:30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.
Eph 5:31 "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two of them shall be one flesh."

Christ loved the church so much that He, being Lord, subjected Himself to the church as a servant, even to the point of death.

The first command here is to love your wives as Christ loved the church. Be devoted to her to such an extent that you would be prepared to die for her.

What is love?

Love is two things. It is first an emotion or feeling that is described like this in www.dictionary.com

A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair.

Secondly, love is a choice. We all have days when emotions run dry and if love was entirely dependent on emotions, it may not last. My experience is that when the emotion is not there for whatever reason, I can choose to love. I can say to myself that I love my wife, and the emotion returns. That's not to say that I have stopped loving my wife, it's just that there are occasions when the emotion isn't foremost in my mind. This could happen for a number of reasons, such as stress, an argument, a death in the family, or something else that takes over your emotions, or maybe you're just having a bad day.

The beautiful thing about love is that, if kept alive, it will grow and blossom with years. It will develop in maturity and become more precious with time.

Gardens

Remember that gardens only get covered with weeds through lack of attention. In the same way, love needs attention to keep it beautiful. Also, as with a garden, what you sow is what will grow. If you sow love, compassion, support, trust, time, friendship and patience you will have a very beautiful garden. Likewise, if you sow disharmony, distrust, impatience, intolerance, control and judgement then your garden will be a bed of misery.

The more you give to your wife in the way of love, friendship, support, compliments, flowers etc, the more you show her how much she is appreciated and adored, the more beautiful she will become.

Sanctify and cleanse her

Sanctify and cleanse your wife by including her in your living relationship with God. As you spend time in fellowship with God together, your hearts will become one. If your relationship with God is not as it should be then this will be hard, but it is something you can work on together. Hopefully this page will be helpful if you need to build that relationship with God. Read the page together and make a plan to do the things mentioned. Plan a time that suits you both and though it may seem awkward to start with, it will open the doors to something beautiful that will be a foundation for your lives.

Spots and wrinkles

Above all else, it is sin that causes blemishes on our soul. We all have them, but God has told us that
Phi 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,

There are times when spots and wrinkles in our wives will be obvious. They are usually pretty noticeable because they offend us in some way. Don't react! Step one is to make sure that we have pulled the plank out of our own eye! Verses 28 and 29 talk about us loving our own body and nourishing and cherishing it. Spiritually speaking, we need to make sure that our lives are right before God before we can minister with love to our wives.

Pray for your wife. Ask God to give you wisdom as to how to deal with the matter so that the very best results are achieved and your wife is built up instead of being criticised or put down. Sometimes the answer may take a while to come, but as you pray for your wife (not against her) God will be working in her life and probably yours as well. It is a marvelous thing when you can remove a spot or blemish from your wife without her even realising it was ever there. She is uplifted and made to feel better about herself and will show the fruit of that.

I remember one time when a friend offended me. I was really angry about it, but instead of reacting I went to God about it and asked for wisdom. Over the next week He ministered to me and showed me how to deal with the situation. Instead of going to my friend angrily and accusing her, I approached her quietly and told her that I was hurt by what she did. It was important to clarify that it was her actions that hurt me rather than pointing the finger at her. As a result she apologised and explained what had happened from her perspective. When she explained the events they didn't seem nearly as bad and our friendship ended up being stronger because of it.

There are times when it is neccessary to apologise even when you don't think it's your fault because the other person often sees things differently and it opens the door to resolving an issue that would otherwise remain unresolved. It shouldn't be a lie, but perhaps you could appologise for how you're feeling towards the other person and this would give them the opportunity to respond. Communication starts and this is the start of finding the answer.

The POWER of prayer

There will be times when differences seem too big or too different to be resolved. Praying together is always a good option. Of course the enemy will try to prevent that from happening, but make an effort! If you both come before God and place the situation in His hands, two things are likely to happen. First it will become His problem instead of yours, thereby taking tension out of the situation. Secondly He will provide an answer which will most likely be very different from anything either of you had thought of, but both can be happy with.

What about submission?

Forget it! God never said to men "make your wife submit". Submission is more about her attitude towards you than her obeying your every command. If your wife has to be told to, or made to submit, then she is not in submission and will find it very hard to find that place. Her submission to you will come from her heart if you prepare the way. This is done by making her life so wonderful that she will love you for it. Her submission to you is nothing to do with you and is not for you to enforce. It is between her and God and, as I said before, it is about her heart attitude towards you rather than her obedience.

If the relationship between husband and wife is not good, then someone needs to make changes. Jesus, who is Lord of all submitted himself to the cross for the church. If anyone needs to start making changes, it is the husband, even if he perceives himself to be in the right!

Love your wife even when the going gets tough. Love her in obedience to God if you can't do it any other way. Make the choice to love her so much that God can not hold you to blame for anything that is wrong in your relationship.

Forgiveness

Joh 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.

And so it should be with us. Be quick to forgive before the enemy can sew seeds of bitterness or destruction. When God forgives us we are told that
Psa 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
We should also forgive in such a way that the offence is completely forgotten and remembered no more.

If you really love someone, you tend to see the good in them rather than the bad. If love has grown cold over the years, ask God to give you His love for your wife. There is no greater love.

Be Bold

Very often men slip into the role of letting their wives make all the decisions and basically run the house and/or family. This is usually a role that women feel uncomfortable with and it is my experience that they appreciate a man who will take the lead, not in a dominating way, but with love and integrity. Take responsibility for your family and think about what you can do to bless them. A day out perhaps, or make a decision to go out to a certain restaurant for tea.

God has given you a natural ability to lead your home. If you haven't already done so, pick up the responsibility and ask God to help you and give you the wisdom to be the man that He created you to be. Remember that leadership, tempered with love, consideration and a servants heart will give security to your wife and family.

Feedback on this page is welcome. Please email me.

Back