Building Better Love : The Mission of Loving WellSýnishorn

The Agreement to Love Well

As women who desire to love well, we know it takes God’s love to love in godly ways. His love will not only change our understanding of love but also our demonstration of love for Him, for our husband, and others in our lives. It’s His love that makes the mission of marriage possible and part of that mission is to respect and submit to our husbands.

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 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. As the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” -Ephesians 5:22-24 (NIV)

Whether you are aware of it or not, we all submit to something every day. No one is independently living their lives without the influence of something or someone. Spiritually speaking, scripture tells us that we are either in submission to God or to sin (Matthew 6:24). We’re either intentionally making choices that honor the Lord or we are intentionally making choices that honor this world.

This is basically what submission means: to honor the influence of another person by aligning yourself in agreement with them. This is obedience in its purest form. It’s something that God requires and something He’s placed in marriage for it to truly thrive.

The truth is that you and your husband should be an influence over each other in your marriage. We certainly want to influence our men to express their love to us in various ways such as emotionally, with their time, compliments, and maybe even gifts. But understand that your husband desires your love to be expressed towards him as respect. Submission makes respect authentic.

Listen, I know this goes against practically everything the feminist culture tells us about our rights as women and love and sex and confidence, but how society handles its affairs will never be in line with God’s standards or His blessings for you (Isaiah 55: 8-9). There is a reason for every instruction God gives us and our obedience demonstrates our trust in Him. We can’t look at carnal examples to determine our spiritual obedience. So, what is respect anyway and what does submission look like?

Submission in marriage, simply put, is living a life of agreement alongside your husband. It doesn’t mean that you approve of everything he does, nor does it mean that you have to do everything he says in a mindless, manner. What submission does mean is that you are consistently and intentionally expressing your love to your husband through genuine reassurance for who he is and for the value God has placed on him as your husband. This can be done simultaneously with other expressions of love, but not in replacement.

There is no replacement for respect and no substitution for submission. God has instructed every wife to respect and submit for the mutual benefit of both the husband and the wife, as unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:21-22). This is not an isolated call only for the wife; God has instructed your husband’s submission and respect under the authority of Jesus Christ for the covering of your household and the expansion of Kingdom work. This is bigger than preference, attitudes, and political politeness. It’s eternal and spiritual and legacy influencing. We cannot afford to make the mistake of compartmentalizing our obedience as if it applies here and not there because our obedience to the Lord is not optional – not if we claim to love Him (John 14:15).

Obedience, submission, respect, and honor all point to loving well. God is love and He is always good, and His instructions are always for our good. Scripture tells us that God requires our obedience “so that we might always prosper” (Deuteronomy 6:24). God delights in your marriage and He desires that it prospers because everything He has created He has declared to be good (Genesis 1:31). God loves your marriage and He loves your husband just as much as He loves you. He knows that your husband needs the affirmation of your submission and respect to propel the mission He’s placed over each of you to love one another well.

How can submitting to Christ teach us how to submit in our marriages?