How Should a Husbad Love His Wife?

Eph 5:25-30  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church for we are members of his body. NIV

 Today John MacArthur was talking about husbands loving their wives on the Grace To You radio program. It's a subject that I think it's always worthwhile to seek to be reminded of, and hopefully become better at putting it into practice.

I happen to be a husband, so this subject matter definitely pertains to me. How should I love my wife?  The answer is simple. I'm to love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

What did Jesus do while He was here in the flesh? He healed people who were sick. He fed people who were hungry. He took time to talk with people and teach them important truth. He took time to be with children. He calmed a storm when His disciples were afraid. He put up with followers who did not understand Him and abandoned Him when difficulties arose.

Why was Jesus so longsuffering and compassionate? Because if He gave up on His weak, sinful and rebellious followers and treated them the way they deserved to be treated, He would have skipped the torturous execution on the Cross, and there would be no Church. Nobody would be cleansed from their sins.

Then and now Jesus does not treat us the way we deserve to be treated. None of us love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We don't deserve the many blessings we already have or the ones that are offered to us if we let Jesus transform us into believers who desire to love and serve Him forever.

If I am a follower of Jesus, I will seek His help to love my wife as He loves His church. If He hadn't laid down His life for us we would not have known how great was His love for us. He suffered and died for us. He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us. He intercedes on our behalf. We can spend eternity with Him where there will be no more sorrow because of what He did. He did what He did because He loves us and loving is something that is done, whether or not a good feeling accompanies the action.

How should a husband love his wife? He should treat as tenderly and kindly as anyone would care for his own body. We like to feed ourselves tasty food. We like to have a warm bath or shower when we're grimey and smelly even to ourselves. We like to be dressed in comfortable clothes. We want those things just because we want them.

I want to love my wife in ways that show her clearly that I care about what she needs and wants. I want her to feel blessed that I'm her husband. Just as all that Jesus has done and is doing for us helps us to rejoice in Him, I want to do things for my wife that will delight her.

I believe that just as Christ loving the Church helps the Church become more godly, my loving my wife in such an unselfish way can help her become the woman God wants her to be.

When I fall short in loving her that way, then I pray that the Lord will quickly convict me of my sin so that I will repent, and ask both God and my wife to forgive me.

Loving my wife the way God wants me to love her takes time and understanding. I pray that I can make good use of those things during all the days of the rest of our lives together.