"Loving Our Wives"

My first wife died a year-and-a-half ago today, and shortly after she went to Heaven, I went to CONFESSION.  You see, I confessed (not to a human "priest," but to God) that I had failed many times over 38 years, to be the husband He called me to be.  I also remember praying that if I ever remarried, He'd help me do better in my second chance.

I did remarry not long ago, and vowed to love my new bride as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25) though I knew I cannot, as a redeemed sinner saved by grace, love her perfectly (despite my desire to.) And just last night as we were having devotions, going though the great book Night Light by the Dobsons, I realized something!  Further on in that Ephesians 5 passage, God says that we husbands are "merely" to love our wives as our own bodies (Ephesians 5:28-29) which seems like a MUCH more attainable standard.

It's almost as if God KNEW that the perfect standard of "as Christ loved the church" might discourage a sincere husband, so he broke it down to "as you love yourself" ........yet, the passage brings it back, in verse 29, to "just as the Lord loves the church." I was thrilled!! (I mean, I knew both of those passages were in Scripture before, I just never realized God put them in such PROXIMITY before.)  Oh, the beautiful, Biblical BALANCE of it all!!

A godly hubby feels frustrated that he'll never be perfect in this life, so he can't possibly love his wife perfectly....he'll only be perfect in Heaven, where there is no marriage, you see!! But we CAN love our wives as ourselves NOW, while we still AIM at loving her with the perfect standard of Christ and the church before us.

By the way, I've heard it said many times that "nowhere does God tell wives that THEY have to love their HUSBANDS.  It's only that HUSBANDS have to love their WIVES."  Wow.

What about the passage where older women are told to teach the younger women how to love their husbands?? Does that not imply a mutual love?? And doesn't the church love Christ, even as Christ loves the church?? Yes, we love him because He first loved us, but we DO love Him...and wives clearly should love their husbands, even though no perfect standard is expected of them.

May God help us Christian husbands, as we are loving our wives, to do it for HIS GLORY and for HER GOOD.




Photo: From the internet, Public Domain