Related Posts: Loving Your Spouse, Living the Lesson: Loving Your Spouse (Part I)
” . . . at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.
Matthew 19:4-6 [NIV]
- Typically your wedding picture shows just the two of you together. According to what Jesus says, who else is in the picture?
- What God joins together He intends to stay together. How does God help you to live out your commitment to each other? How can you improve on keeping Him in your marriage picture?
- Daily
- Weekly
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husband in everything.
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 their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:21-33 [NIV]
- In this job description for a wife and husband, the individual’s relationship to Jesus is paramount. Reflect on this statement: Both the husband and wife deserve respect and love in their relationship. Only the Lord is worthy or reverence.
- Our model for husbands is to love as Jesus loves us. What is the purpose of Jesus’ self-sacrificing love? (vs. 26, 27)
- How does God’s Word help you clean up after messing up so you can grow up to be like Jesus?
- Husbands: How do you use God’s Word to help your wife? (Note: Our job description is about three times longer than our wife’s. I guess we will be busy!
- Wives: How do you use God’s Word to help your husband?
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 [NIV]
- These verses describe the characteristics of LOVE. Rewrite it by filling in your name. Celebrate the character qualities that are in place, and start working on the character issues that are lacking.
- __________________ is patient
- __________________ is kind
- __________________ does not envy
- __________________ does not boast
- __________________ is not proud
- __________________ is not rude
- __________________ is not self-seeking
- __________________ is not easily angered
- __________________ keeps no record of wrongs
- __________________ does not delight in evil
- __________________ rejoices with the truth
- __________________ always protects
- __________________ always trusts
- __________________ always hopes
- __________________ always perseveres
- __________________ never fails