Scripture:
25″Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …” (ESV)
Observation:
What an interesting verse. Husbands are to take on the role of Christ in the marriage relationship. In fact it’s a role with which many of us don’t identify. The husband serving the wife to the point of dying for her! What an unbelievable concept. Conventional wisdom in many circles is that if the husband is the head of the family, it’s the other family members that serve and sacrifice for him, not the other way around. Us husbands are compared to Christ, who loved the church and gave himself up for her. Christ serves the church and wants the best for her. He doesn’t enslave the church, but protects her and works for her best. That’s the role the husband plays in the marriage relationship. Elsewhere in this passage it reads that the wife is to submit to the husband. Well, if the husband’s foremost aim is to serve the wife, what woman would not want to submit to that? Submission, then, needs to take on another definition. It becomes sharing with the husband what her dreams and ideas are for the future and letting the husband help her fulfill them. That’s submission!
Application:
This has been a verse I’ve worked on for 39 years now. It’s hard to realize you are the servant in the home. I have spent time on my drives home asking God to give me an attitude and heart that serves my family when I walk in the door. I realize I need to put their needs and desires first, not my own. That doesn’t mean I’ve been perfect or even good at it, but I’ve tried. God has given me a love and desire for my family that has made it easy to serve them. We have had some good times just being together as a family and enjoying one another. It’s a journey and something that all us married men need to work on. Hopefully today when I arrive home, I’ll be the servant to my family God is calling me to be.
Prayer:
Father God thank you for my family. Help me today to be the servant to them you have called me to be. Thank you for Christ’s infinite example of serving his church to the point where he died for her. Help us to follow strong after his example. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus, Amen.
dmbaldwin
Sixty-six books in a year 