This week’s devotions are based on Week 9 of the Series Ephesians: Becoming Who You Are (CLICK HERE)
We can never underestimate the importance of having the Lord as the focus of our hearts and lives to make marriage work. To be sure, the world around presents us with many mindsets and ideas of what marriage should be, how men should be, how women should be. TikTok and Facebook Reels present snapshots into the common missteps of marriage or the quick hacks to a better marriage (some are valuable and practical). Yet in addition to the threats from outside, is the greatest threat to our marriages…our sinful nature inside. Our sinful nature naturally rebels against anything that God suggests and desires the opposite. On the other hand our nature driven by God’s Spirit craves the guidance of God for all things – including our marriages. (Maybe it’s telling that the end of Ephesians is the discussion of spiritual warfare…because the key to winning at marriage is winning the spiritual battles within your own heart.)
So the Lord gives his guidance to wives:
Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
What is helpful in these verses (as they are to husbands) is the analogy of marriage to Christ and the Church. The Church consists of Christ who unconditionally sacrificed himself for the Church and the Church who, in response, willingly follows the headship of Christ.
Anything less than this being reflected in our marriages is evidence that sin is creeping in.
For ladies, it is easy to bristle at the word “submit.” It conjures up a “slave/master” relationship where submission is demanded and expected “in everything.” Husbands can be guilty of promoting this idea with forgetting the direction the Lord gave them and simply claiming “headship” over their wives without any thought of being Christ to their wives. For this husbands need a call to repentance.
The Church willingly yields to Christ because it knows and trusts that Christ has their best interest in mind. They have witnessed the selfless, sacrificial love that Christ has shown and trust fully that the path of following Christ is the blessed path to live. They know that in all things Christ will not steer them wrong, take advantage of them, or make a decision that will harm them. In all things the Church trusts Christ to lead well and love well.
Wives carry the same spirit with your husbands. (Husbands, I can’t stay away from our responsibility to create this environment that submission is freely given because we are doing our best with the Lord’s help to lead well and love well.)
As we all know sin messes this up. Sin can lead wives to be punitive and disrespectful to their husbands. Sin can lead wives to diminish the roll God gave their husband and have a view of them that is less than honoring and fails to build up and encourage their husband in their walk of faith. Sin can lead husbands to abuse the headship God has given and force submission. They can lead in a selfish way that does not engender trust and good will from their wives. For sin as it has crept into our marriages, let us seek forgiveness from our spouse and strength from God’s Spirit to better understand his love for us so we can give that love to each other.
Marriage is a blessing from God. So let’s seek his wisdom, guidance and direction to make our marriage one that is honoring to him and a blessing to each other. And for those that are not married yet, pray for God to send you a spouse that walks with Jesus and seeks to honor him in life and in marriage.
Apply: Wives, what is one thing you can do today for your husband that will encourage him in his leading of your household in a godly way? What is something that needs repentance and forgiveness? Perhaps its time for a recommitment as a couple to seek the Lord in your marriage and walk with him.
Prayer: Lord, infiltrate all marriages with your love and grace. Help husbands to love as you loved and wives to submit to and respect their husbands as the Church submits and respects you as its head. AMEN.