Loving Our Wives in the Way the Lord Loved the Church

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Arial" ><B>For The Believers In The Body Of Christ</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="For The Believers In The Body Of Christ"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id399.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Message Outline (Husbands)"><U>Message Outline (Husbands)</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id402.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Husbands Assuming Responsibility as the "><U>Husbands Assuming Responsibility as the Head</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id403.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Wifes Need in her Emotions"><U>The Wife's Need in her Emotions</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id404.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Given to Your Wife and Committed to Her"><U>Given to Your Wife and Committed to Her</U></A><B>   |   </B><B>Loving Our Wives in the Way the Lord Loved the Church</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id406.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Nourishing Our Wives and Cherishing Her"><U>Nourishing Our Wives and Cherishing Her</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id407.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A Fellow Heir of the Grace of Life"><U>A Fellow Heir of the Grace of Life</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="02ad2c00dkelyh.gif"> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Spiritual Food"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Spiritual Food</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Psalms, Hymns Spiritual Songs"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id147.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Gospel Outreach"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Gospel Outreach</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id159.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Us"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">"About Us"</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id186.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Contact Us</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id187.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Related Links"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Related Links</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id639.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JESUS IS LORD!"><U><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7011899330000.gif" HEIGHT="19" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">JESUS IS LORD!</B></U></A></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  </div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Loving Our Wives in the Way the Lord Loved the Church</I></div> <div> Loving your wife in the way the Lord loved the church and sanctified the church so that He may present the church to Himself glorious (Ephesians 5:25-26)</div> <bR> <div> 25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her  26 That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word.</div> <bR> <div>      The Lord has a very ugly Bride.  She is rebellious, unsubmissive, and contrary.  Yet, the Lord says, “Well, we've got a job to do.”  He doesn't walk into the situation and demand submission.  “Don't you know what My Word says?  Wives submit!  The church should submit to Me.”  No.  That is not the way He works.  His desire is to present the church glorious to Himself, so He does everything to make His wife perfect.  Isn't this wonderful?  </div> <bR> <div>      <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" >To Make Her a Perfect Help Meet</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      We are exactly the opposite.  When young people get married it usually takes two to three months for them to come into shock.  They thought they had married an angel and after three months they realize they married a devil instead.  Maybe we made a mistake.  Is it too late to back out?  We start out believing that our spouse should be perfect, therefore, she should submit.  Yet, God in His wisdom begins the other way around.  “I married a mess.”  That's us.  God realizes that we are so contrary, so uncooperative and so unable to do anything right.  So He will pay the price to do whatever He can to warm us, to comfort us, to cherish us, to encourage us, to strengthen us, and to support us in every way that He can.  He will make His wife a perfect help meet, a perfect partner, a perfect vessel for God to indwell in order to manifest Himself in and through humanity on the earth to the entire universe.</div> <bR> <div>      The husband should look at his wife and ask, “What can I do that my wife and I can become so one, so harmonious, so loving.”  Then I struggle to seek the Lord for ways to properly nurture my wife.  Rather than pointing out shortages, we find ways to make up the lack.  The Lord will cause us to pay whatever price to come alongside our wife, to sanctify her, to gain her trust and understanding, and to encourage her until the two of us become one.  This is not something that we can demand of our wife.  Many Christians go that route and become almost useless to the Lord as a family unit.  Why?  Because the husband is off visiting people while the wife may call some on the phone, but as a family there is no harmony or fragrance of Christ.  When God puts a husband and wife together His purpose is that the two become one so there is a unit useful for His economy.  Just consider the children.  If we want them to grow up and have a healthy marriage, where is their pattern?  We are.  When they look at the father and see someone who is tender, kind, considerate, and thoughtful this leaves a big impression on our children.  We fully recognize that we have made and will make lots of mistakes, but for a child to see daddy go to mommy and say, “I'm sorry” and see him do something special for her they are very impressed.  On the contrary, no matter how much they see daddy serving the Lord or mommy serving the Lord, if something is wrong between their parents, this also gets inside of the children based on observation.</div> <bR> <div>      <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" >Paying the Price to Gain Her Submission</FONT></div> <div>   </div> <div>      We don't ask the wife to submit as husbands, but we love them to the point that they desire to submit with their whole heart.  That's worth repeating:  don't ask your wife to submit.  If she doesn't submit this means that you have not loved her to the point where she wants to submit.  This is the pattern that the Triune God has established with us as His Bride and this is the meaning of the verses in Ephesians 5.  He does not demand our submission, but He loves us until we give our whole life to Him willingly.  He visits us again and again and again in order to find a way to gain our hearts.</div> <bR> <div>      Many brothers desire to love the Lord and serve the Lord and probably the topmost way is through the home with the family.  There are the special gifts in the Body of Christ like evangelism, apostolic ministry, etc. but generally in the normal church life, the family is God's way to reach out to people.  In the family life a husband does not have to struggle to do outward things, but has many interactions with Christ to create the proper relationship between him and his wife before the children.  Our own wife becomes one of the people we pray for the most; not for her to change, but “Lord, how is my wife doing in Your eyes?  Do I need to do something for her?”  In this way, we will find out that the Lord will lead us often and in many kinds of ways.  </div> <bR> <div>      When the Lord leads us by His life within, His leading always comes through human virtues.  (see <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000BF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="id340.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Introduction: God Manifested in Human V"><U>God Manifested in Human Virtues</U></A></FONT>)  It may surprise you as to how many admonitions there are in scripture to kindness, goodness, tenderheartedness, long-suffering, and patience.  These are all human virtues.  We think that to contact the Lord will produce spiritual activity.   Our thought is that if the Lord leads us it would be to give a Bible verse to someone.  If the Lord leads me it would be to give a song to somebody.  If the Lord leads me it will drive me to preach the gospel to someone.  These all may be true but these represent a vast minority of all the leadings in human virtues that the Lord will use.  Actually our genuine, spirit-led contact of Christ will produce human virtues more times than not.  For instance, our kindness to someone will minister more grace than a spiritual message to them.  Our long-suffering by bearing others over a long period of time will minister more grace than a spiritual message to them.  One example is a brother I knew who seemingly was setting the Lord and His interest aside for most of four years.  His wife had some relatively severe psychological problems.  For the children's sake and for his marriage's sake he had to do so many things for his wife to take care of her throughout that period of time.  I realized within myself that this was the true meaning of being a brother in Christ and a husband before the Lord.  He was not led to do things that were so-called spiritual, but he bore his wife in her infirmity until she might grow out of or overcome the difficulty.  This process lasted four years!  He couldn't go to many church gatherings that he desired to attend.  Yet, He had leading from the Lord to stay home and take care of the children, so they would not become overbearing to their mother.  He bore her in this way.  He did not recite verses to get her to shape up.  Today, both he and his wife are positively pursuing the Lord together with their children.  Praise the Lord for this!</div> <bR> <div>      It is mainly by virtues like patience, long-suffering and bearing others, not by “spiritual things” that the Lord ministers His grace to others.  When the Lord charges us to love our wives, this implies He leads us with all kinds of human virtues to love them.  It doesn't mean that we have a verse for every different situation and condition they are in, but that we are seeking the Lord and His presence to make our family such a warm, harmonious, loving atmosphere.  As we are before the Lord, His leading comes in many ways.  One time I was trying to be revived in the morning with Christ, and my wife was teaching, getting her Master's degree, raising four children, and serving in the church.  I began to pray, “Lord Jesus, I love You.  I praise You.”  I quickly had a feeling to stop my time with the Lord to clean the entire house before my wife woke up.  I argued to myself, “I will, Lord, as soon as You and I have our time together.  You know I need to get revived.”  Yet, as I prayed and sought the Lord, there was nothing.  It was as if the Lord was saying, “I will be with you when you clean the house.”  It wasn't until I closed my Bible and closed my hymnal, got out the vacuum and dust cloths that I sensed the Lord's presence.  The more I cleaned the house, the more I was filled with life.  What is this?  This is the Lord's leading according to virtue.  </div> <bR> <div> This kind of living goes against the fiber of our being and understanding in the natural realm because we are so religious.  We act religious and display a pretense of spirituality while the Lord is human.  To love our wives is to be virtuous.  We may never be able to measure the impact in verses or hymns, but we are led by the Lord in all kinds of virtues such as tenderheartedness and forgiveness.  The husband struggles before the Lord to insure that his wife feels so loved and happy.  With wives, happiness is a good measuring stick.  I am not advocating worldly happiness by buying her worldly things and having a lot of possessions.  This does not make her happy in the long run.  What makes a wife happy is her husband's love.  This is also true with our children.  To them material things are not the crucial matter.  There are many wealthy families who give their kids everything you can imagine, but what do the kids play in?  The boxes that all their expensive toys were packaged in.  Material things are nothing in the long run compared to the assurance of our love towards them.  This kind of love is realized by seeking the Lord, struggling before the Lord and getting the Lord's leading.  Many times the leading is to do something virtuous.  For instance, sometimes the Lord leads me to take my wife out, away from the kids, for an evening alone despite the cost of a babysitter and a meal.  To follow the Lord's leading in this way produces an on-going assurance of love, security, care and understanding.</div> <bR> <div> <B>We struggle before the Lord not to lose the romance and the sweetness in our marriage.</B></div> <bR> <div> Another key point in our marriage life is that husbands must struggle before the Lord not to lose the romance and the sweetness in the marriage.  This is exactly what the Lord does with us.  He does not love us for the first year and then get down to “business as usual” for God's interest!  “We're going to carry out God's economy, right guys?”  No.  He remains tender, sweet, warm and romantic as revealed throughout the entire book of the Song of Songs.  Sisters crave this kind of love while brothers usually can live without it.  That is why this is such a genuine spiritual matter.  We cold, heart-less brothers must have constant interaction with a loving Christ who can infuse Himself as love into our being, so we then can love our wives properly.  Sisters crave the sense of being loved and the sense of knowing that they are loved.  Again, we have the model of the Lord Himself being sweet and tender with us.  Therefore, the romance needs to remain in marriage.  The sweetness has to remain in marriage.  You may say, “I'm not a romantic person.”  Well, brothers, I don't know how the Lord will do it in you, but you have to seek Him to find the way that works with you.  </div> <bR> <div>      All of this fellowship is the most spiritual and real.  We are not sharing this to produce good marriages or good romances.  No.  We are for God's economy for Him to dispense Himself into all of His believers throughout the whole earth who comprise His Body.  This economy will bring Him back.  We are fighting that we would raise up the Bride of Christ to bring the Lord Jesus back!  Yet with us there are huge holes in our family life, holes in our marriage life.  We need to struggle that in the family life here in Detroit and in all cities bearing the Lord's testimony, the Lord would have so many vessels to reach out to others.  My hope is to inspire all of us to seek Christ to have a family that He can use for His interest and purpose on the earth today.  If we do not take this way of loving our wives, then eventually we will have no family life or vessel for the Lord to use.  We will be demanding, and she will not submit willingly and joyfully as God intended.  This indicates a lack of struggling before the Lord to make our wife happy, secure, understood and cared for.  There is no oneness or harmony or union to serve the Lord together.  Therefore, sweetness and romance are a necessary part of every marriage. </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id406.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Nourishing Our Wives and Cherishing Her"><U>Nourishing Our Wives and Cherishing Her</U></A></div> <div>  </div> </td> </tr></table></body>