Husbands love your wives

‎"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." - Ephesians 5:25.

In modern marriage, the barometer of whether a husband loves his wife is dependent on how she feels about it. When the wife doesn't "feel" loved, she's not happy and when she's not happy, she makes the whole family miserable. Therefore, the husband must express his love for his wife by doing everything he can to make her happy. Got it? Right. So, what you just read is everything that is wrong with modern Christian marriages.

Wives should not be holding men hostage to the whims of their emotions. Men should not submit to the tyranny of their wives emotions in order to make them feel loved.

Look at the verse above again "...love your wives as Christ loved the church..." Jesus does not bend to the will of the church. He is not manipulated by our moods, nor does our bidding because we're being petulant or emotional. Jesus loves the church by doing what is best for the church regardless of how the church feels about it.

I cannot tell you how many Christian men I know that are divorced because their wives were "not happy" and didn't "feel loved" or whatever. These men didn't cheat on their wives, they were not drunks or drug addicts nor gamblers, pedophiles or criminals. They are all decent men that failed to do one particular thing in their marriage and that was to ignore what their wives were feeling in favor of what was best for them. I was one of those men too. Compromise after compromise. Go along to get along. Keep the peace. Don't rock the boat. She'll respect me more if I just listen to what she's feeling.

Remember, "as Christ loved the church." What women want can change from one moment to the next, their feelings go up and down and sway side to side. One moment, you're the best, the next moment you're the cause of everything wrong in her life. 

"As Christ loved the Church." Jesus doesn't try to appease the church, mollycoddle it, persuade it by begging it to calm down and listen to reason. No, Christ loved the church by giving himself up for it, and being a rock; steady and reliable; a strong tether in a storm.

Guys, we're not perfect but we can be that rock, that tether. Giving in to her emotional demands means you're floating on a stormy sea too and not anchored down. So get anchored. It's ok to stand up to her and not put up wild outbursts of emotion designed to drive you in to submission to her will. She'll try it but she won't respect you for it when you give in.

This of course does not mean you should never take in to account how she feels but you must be discerning and keep things in proportion. A wise man listens to his wife's counsel. That means he takes in to consideration what she says, not that he automatically has to do what she wants.

"As Christ loved the church."