Today I witnessed a wedding. To me it's beautiful when two people stand before God in the interest of pledging a lifelong commitment to one another. Our pastor said today that marriage is a covenant. It's true. The intent of a Christian wedding ceremony is to go to God in acknowledgement of him being head of all and to stand before him to swear our commitment to one intended spouse for life.
God esteems the institution of marriage. He regards it highly enough to establish standards for it. In Ephesians 5, God lays out his expectations clearly. They are simple.
1. Wives submit to your own husbands:
In these days it is hard for a women to acknowledge a man as being head over her. Why should we have to humble ourselves to our husbands when we are as capable as they are in everything? They often don't deserve to be in charge and prove themselves to be less than wise. Well, that doesn't matter. We submit to our husbands not in response to what they do or who/how they are. We submit to our husbands because it is a directive from God. That is why we must be very prayerful and wise before going into the union. God has established an order and a system for marriage. To go against that system is to go against God. It is to say that we think ourselves to know better than God knows. Submitting yourself to your husband doesn't mean that you have no say. It means that the husband has the final say.
2. Husbands love your wives as God loves the church:
Many people believe women were given the harder order when it comes to marital relationships because the husband is declared head over the wife. But to he whom much is given, much is required. God has given the husband authority, and in return God has commanded love from the husband for his wife. God made it clear that he doesn't expect our emotional, up-and-down, here-then-gone, unstable, fleshly kind of love from the husband either. No, God requires that the husband love his wife as God loves the church. God loves his church dearly. God is very protective of his church. God is a provider for his church. God shows his church grace and mercy everyday. There is no selfishness or bravado in God's love for his church. Everything God does in regards to his church is done out of love. God sacrificed himself for his church. The way God has treated and still does treat his church is God's directive for how a husband should deal with his wife.
God created us. He knows how we work. God created the make up of a man as such that he needs respect. Most men could suffer through a marriage without love, but not without respect. God created the make up of a woman such that her greatest desire is love. A woman needs to know that her husband will daily lay himself down on her behalf. If not, something will always be missing or broken in the marriage.
Marriage is a sanctioned union. It is the joining of two people as they become one. Marriage is a process, not an act or ceremony. Marriage can only function as intended when both members understand that God must be head over it all, which means following his commandments concerning it.
Scripture:
Ephesians 5:22-33
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body,[d] of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”[e] 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 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.
Prayer:
Lord help us to understand marriage. Help us to clearly comprehend your intents and purposes for it and our responsibilities in it. Help us to live in the beauty and goodness of it.
Amen.
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