The Mingling Of Souls - Matt Chandler On IntimacySýnishorn

“Going to God”

The Scriptures show husbands that they’ve been called by God to love their wives like Christ loved the church. That means we love them regardless of their response to our efforts to change them. And the same grace-centeredness is needed for the wives who want their husbands to change.

Getting our hearts into this way of thinking is the hardest thing in marriage by far because all of us tend to love in order to get something in return. (You can tell when it’s not really love you’re giving if you begin to withhold it because you don’t think the response is good enough.) Jesus calls us to a more selfless way, the way of the cross. His way calls us to love purely because it’s the right thing to do, because it honors him and glorifies his Father. Jesus emptied himself in order to love imperfect responders. That’s real love.

Men, have you figured out that you cannot be romantic enough… sweet enough… help around the house enough? You cannot make enough money and buy enough stuff to make your wife a sexual dynamo in the bedroom. Heart change isn’t brought about through leverage like that. In the end, only the Holy Spirit can change your wife’s heart. So we love, we encourage, and repeatedly we turn our wife over to Christ because he can change her heart. He can move in her. He can do things that we can’t.

The same is true of women. You can give all the sex that your man wants. You can cook him all his favorite meals. You can keep the house extra clean. You can give him time alone in his man cave. And God can use all those things, but none of them performed to bring about change will work to change your man’s heart. Only God can do that.

That is what happened with Solomon and his queen. Her heart was transformed and stirred up toward her husband when just a little while ago it wasn’t at all. She was indifferent because she was tired. But then she became sick with love. God did that.

* Have you ever fallen into the trap of leverage? Do you turn your spouse over to Christ, knowing only He can change him/her? Do you realize that He loves your spouse more than even you?