ICS Daily Devotions
Agape Love
Ephesians 5:22-33 (NKJV) Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, ……. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
The relationship between a husband and a wife is like the relationship between Christ and the Church.
Christ loved the church, provided for her and laid down His life for her.
A woman’s prime need is for security and love and a man’s prime need is for significance.
The husband needs to love his wife in order to meet her needs of security. The wife needs to respect her husband so that she may satisfy his need of being significant. If a husband cannot feel significant in his own home, then it is very difficult for him to perform to his maximum potential in the work place. If the wife does not feel loved in her home – this love producing a security – then she will not be able to properly fulfil her role either. The primary role of the woman according to the Bible is to be a helpmate to her husband.
Christ loved us because His love is based on His nature – God is Love. His kind of love for us is Agape love, unconditional love.
When God tells the husband to love his wife – it is always Agape love, an unconditional love.
Why? Because there will be a lot of changes in marriages, adjustment to each other, different habits, people always put up the best before marriage.
A successful marriage takes two people to achieve it. A husband needs to love his wife , sacrifice for her, listen to her concerns, take care of her, be as sensitive to her needs and her hurts as he is to those of his own body.
Ephesians 5:21(NKJV) submitting to one another in the fear of God.
Submission is necessary when the husband loves his wife as Christ loves the Church. Godly submission is about responding to leadership and acknowledging the husband’s responsibility and accountability to God as the head; not about domination and control.
The husband is commanded to love his wife and the wife is to respect her husband. Respect him, listen to him, praise him, be unified in purpose and will. The husband is the head of the house. Being the head simply means caretaker and protector of his wife and children.
Sermon Series: Husbands and Wives
