Becoming The Husband She Needsعينة

Love Without ‘Strings’ Attached

How does Jesus love the Church? Well, first of all, He serves her

Even before the Church became the Church, Jesus demonstrated agape love to all people, those who cared about Him and those who didn’t, meeting their needs not because they deserved it, but because His doing so glorified God, or directed their attention to God’s perfection.

Jesus’ obedient death on the cross was the ultimate act of agape love, love based not on the merit of the receiver, but on the noble intentions of the giver that may or may not involve emotion. A hopeless sinner, you didn’t deserve the sacrifice that sinless Jesus made for you, but He did it anyway, making your spiritual rescue possible and glorifying God in the process. After your salvation, His Holy Spirit continues to equip, comfort, teach, encourage, convict, guide, and empower you, etc. even when you make mistakes.

If you belong to Jesus, He expects you to extend the same level of mercy, grace, and forgiveness to others—friend or foe—that He extends to you, first in His death on the cross and now in His continued involvement in your life through the Holy Spirit. Surely, this includes your wife!

The world says to give only as much as you get, but Jesus says to give everything, expecting nothing in return. Serve your wife. Sacrifice for her. Demonstrate Jesus’ humility as you do so, not because she deserves it—she may not sometimes—but because your loving her the way Jesus loves the Church glorifies God.

• How might your understanding that you don’t necessarily have to feel loving to express love free you up to be the husband God wants you to be?
• Is it possible to act your way into feeling?
• What encouragement can you draw from the fact that your expressing agape love to your wife pleases God, no matter her response?

Read John 13:34-35, Mark 10:45, and Matthew 5:16.