Love your wife christian relationships

Love your wife

It is very important for us as men to be in our relationships/marriage with an open heart. To sincerely hear from our Father what we can do to change the way we do things to know His heart. We sometimes judge our current situation against others.

We judge our standard of marriage against our friends and family, the neighbour across the street, couples in the church, our parents and even the media. However great our marriage or relationship may be, it is often far from the standard that God requires from us. We can always have an open heart to look where we can love more, give more and lead as gracious men in our marriage.

We as men tend to focus on our calling, where we want in live, where we are going, what we want to do, hunting down our dreams leaving our spouses to trail behind us in the process, placing them second to this. It is important to know that one day our Father will hold us accountable for our spouses. Do we even know what their calling is, what their dreams are, or what they long for?

In all of this, we need to call on the Holy Spirit to cut away all the things that corrupt our hearts, and the way we treat our wives. How do we live out our lives in our marriage. Heb 4:12 says that the Word is living and active and cuts between bone and marrow. We need to open our hearts and overflow with God’s Word, be saturated by the Word, in order to be the men that God wants us to be. The Word of God is a discerner of our thoughts and the intents of our hearts. Let us continuously be open to the working of the Father in our lives.

It is important to note the progress into the kingdom. Col 3 speaks about how we should focus on Christ, and not the flesh, that we’ve died to this world and Jesus has set us free. Right after the opening paragraph in chapter 3, we get a heading saying “Character of a new man” (v12-17) explaining to us what we should be like to others, to ourselves, and especially our spouse in marriage. It is only by the grace of God that we can ever reach this standard. The next paragraph gives us a good understanding of what a Christian home/marriage should be like. We as men should note Col 3:19 stating that we should love our wives and NOT be BITTER towards them. Our marriages can overflow with life and love when we draw from our Father and not from our own power.

Eph 5:25-27. This is what God requires of us. This is His standard for our marriages.

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

Eph 5:26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,

Eph 5:27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

We must love our wives as Christ loved the church giving His life for her. This is a very strong statement, the standard we are to set. We must speak life over our wives every day, and verse 27 gives the conclusion on why we do this. We do this in order to present our wives spotless and without wrinkle, that she should be holy and without blemish. It is our duty to fight for our wives, to look after them, to treat them with respect and in a way where they will continually grow.

Do not ever judge your current relationship by the standard of the world. Let us rather go to God’s Word and ask Him to reveal His perfect plan and pattern to us.

It is important for us to fight for our wife’s and not with them. In marriage and relationships it is easy to neglect that. When we do not protect our wife’s and fight with them we almost kick them out of the nest and let them know that they have to fend for themselves. For the lack of a better example it is like a mother hen kicking out the little ones. We need to draw our spouses into our protection, keep them safe, guard them.