Jump Start # 539

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

  Today is Valentine’s Day. Stores are full of heart shaped candy and the color of the day is red. There will be roses purchased and chocolates given as expressions of love. It’s good to remember our love for our family and to express it to them. Our busy schedules and the demands of life often make it difficult and we can just assume that everyone knows how we feel about them. It’s good to say it. We need to say it often.

  Our passage today is not about romantic love or family love. We’d tend to think it is since it is addressed to those married, “Husbands love your wives…” This is not candle light dinners, moonlit strolls along a beach, holding hands, or romance. This is a greater and usually a more difficult form of love. This is to care and want the best for another. This is the same type of love as found in the famous passage, “for God so loved the world…” This love is a choice, not a feeling. It is not based upon how the other one acts nor reacts. God loves us, even when we were sinners and not very loveable. He did that not because we are so cute and irresistible, but because He chose to. God wants the best for us. He sent the best for us. He prepared the best for us. God cares.

  The difficulty in this passage is Paul’s use of “just as.” He likes that expression. It’s a comparison. He used it earlier in chapter four when he told brethren to forgive one another, “Just as” Christ has forgiven you. That’s tough. It’s one thing to forgive, but to forgive like Christ, that’s the ultimate example. Christ never says, “enough,” I’m not forgiving you anymore. Christ never puts limits on our forgiveness, such as, you get ten a week. After that, you are on your own. Have you ever thought about how many times God has forgiven you? 100 times? A thousand? More? Forgive “just as” Christ has forgiven you.

  In our passage, Paul uses the “just as” expression again. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church…” Just as. To grasp the depth of this passage we have to understand how Christ loves the church. Look at what Christ has done for his people, the church. He’s there to forgive us. He mediates for us. He blesses us. He works with us and through us. He wants the church to thrive. He wants us to be faithful and devoted to Him. He gives us every reason to do that. Christ never lets us down. He never disappoints. He never abandons us. He is everything to us. Our relationship with the Lord is joyous, fulfilling and often it seems one sided. He does so much for us, compared to what we do for Him. Our words of praise are not close to what we ought to be feeling about Him.

  Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church. Powerful thought. The thoughts of the husband needs to be on the wellbeing of his wife. He is concerned about her and wants to see her do well. He will be concerned about her health. He will be concerned about her happiness. He is concerned about her spiritual wellbeing. He wants to see her connecting with the Lord and growing spiritually. The closer she gets to the Lord, and the closer he gets to the Lord, the closer they become to each other.

  Have you ever noticed that Jesus illustrated and demonstrated nearly everything He asks of us? Think about that. We have to worship God. Jesus did that. We have to be Holy. Jesus was. We have to obey God. Jesus did, perfectly. We are to love others. Jesus did. Pray—Jesus did, often all night long. We are to be kind and helpful. Jesus was. Heaven needs to be near to our hearts. It was with Jesus. Our Lord didn’t bark out commands that He never did Himself, instead, He showed, He demonstrated with His own life. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church…This makes us look in the mirror. It’s easy to walk into the house and shout out demands and expectations of which we would never do ourselves. Christ wasn’t like that. He did. He showed. He was first in all things.

  Christ wants us Holy, so He was holy. Christ wants us obedient, so He was obedient. Husbands want wives to be caring, so they must be caring. Husbands want wives to be thinking of them, so it goes that he ought to be thinking of her.

  Wanting the best, begins by being the best yourself. This is what Christ was. Our upside down world doesn’t get this. It builds a marriage based upon selfish happiness instead of the glory of God and the wellbeing of the other. This explains why there is so much turmoil in relationships today. Folks are starting off wrong. When I used to high jump, it was important to begin your jump with the correct foot. If you didn’t, everything got ugly very fast. It’s that way in relationships. If one doesn’t start correct, with the right foundation, purpose and expectations, it will soon turn very ugly, very quickly.

  Husbands love your wives…How is your wife feeling about God? Do you know? Is she becoming a spiritual rock? Is she growing in the Lord? Is she connecting with her church family? Is she stressed because she feels that she is carrying the load of the family by herself? Fair questions to ask. It would do well to ask the same questions about husbands? How is he doing spiritually?

  I dare say that God is more interested in my helping my wife get to Heaven than my getting her a card with a heart on it. The card is nice and it will bring a smile to her face, but helping her get to Heaven will bring a smile to the face of God. I help her get to Heaven by first, being serious about that myself and being the spiritual example that I should. I need to lead the house in prayer, holiness, and seeking God. The family ought to see in me, what I want in them. I want them spending time with the Bible, so they ought to see me in the book. I want them to have spiritual values and to be able to turn a channel when a show or the commercial is offensive, immoral, indecent, immodest. If I want that in them, then I need to set the pace and do that myself, even when they are not around. I fear that we’ve gotten to the point that we want others to do what is right, but we excuse ourselves for not doing the same. That’s not the way Jesus was. Love just as Christ loved the church…

  Why is it that husbands have to do this? Because God said so. Because you are the head of the family. Being the head doesn’t mean you get the remote, the choice of where to eat, and the best seat on the couch. No, it means you lead. Christ is the head of the church—He leads, shows, and following Him takes us to Heaven. The family ought to be able to follow dad, all the way to Heaven. That’s being the head. Tough job, few do it well. 

 It’s the “just as” part of this passage that drives us husbands. It’s hard to match Jesus, we’ll keep trying.

Roger