I love going to weddings. This is not just because you get to dress up nicely and relax for the day, but they are always joyful occasions filled with hope for the future. Marriages connect together two extended families and friendship groups. It is beautiful to see a new family unit created.
In Ephesians, we can see God’s desire for our marriages to be a living example that reflects Christ’s love for the church, His people – the beloved, the bride of Christ! (See Revelation 19:6-8)
When you think of Christ’s love for the church, what comes to mind?
- His self-sacrificing love as He gave Himself for us
- His steadfast love, which never leaves us and remains faithful despite our doubts and unfaithfulness
- His guiding love as He seeks us when we go astray
- His tender hearted love that seeks to encourage, correct, and teach us more of God
- His gracious, forgiving love, which seeks to deepen our relationship with God
- His transforming love, which changes us as we respond to His great love for us
- His everlasting love, which stretches into eternity providing us with an eternal home with Him
There are many more ways to look at the love of Christ for the church. They are all good and bring us rich blessings. It isn’t a relationship of master and slave but of lover and the beloved, like in Song of Songs.
Christ’s Love in Marriage
I am sure if you have been around the church for a while you will be able to think of marriages that reflect the love Christ has for His bride. In those marriages, you see two people working together as one for the glory of God. They listen to one another, respect each other, and laugh together. They speak well of the other as well as appreciate, trust, and rely on one another. Praise God for examples such as these!
This type of marriage doesn’t just happen. If you ask those couples, they will tell you they have had to work at their marriages, praying through the good and challenging days.
Reflecting the wonderful relationship between Christ and the church sets a very high bar for us to reach. None of our marriages are perfect, but we can see what we should be striving towards. We all have areas we need to confess to God and potentially to our husbands, too.
Christ’s Love for Every Person
Though God’s design is for every marriage to reflect Christ’s love for the church, that is not always the case for each relationship. Marriage isn’t always easy. There are two sinful people who are selfish by nature. It takes a willingness to work together and can really test our desire to live in a way that honors God.
In this fallen world, even talking about marriage can be painful and difficult. There are marriages where there is abuse or exploitation. This is not part of God’s design for marriage. If you are in a situation like this, don’t be afraid to seek help.
The other thing to be noted is that Christ’s love for the church is not limited for those in marriages. It is for all people, no matter their relationship status. As the church, we are to love and care for those in any season of life.
Marriage is a blessing given by God, but it is not the highest or most important status to attain.
It can also be hard if you have been widowed. I pray you would know the closeness of the Lord. He sees, knows, and loves you.
Being single if you’d like to be married is difficult. Pray for the Lord to lovingly lead you in the paths He has prepared for your good and His glory.
If your husband isn’t yet a Christian, keep praying for him and living out your faith. God transforms (see 1 Peter 3:1-2 for encouragement).
Marriages face a lot of challenges. Please take time to pray for the marriages of others you know. If you are married, pray for your own marriage as well.
Submitting to Christ and One Another
There are some words today with which we can have negative associations. Within these verses, we have one of those words – submit. My natural response to this word is to rebel. However, I need to heed what God said to Eve in Genesis 3:16.
“I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”
We have this natural, sinful desire to want to be in control of our relationships. But neither a wife’s control nor a husband’s domination are what God desires for our marriages.
I have heard a preacher say that if any husband is quoting Ephesians 5:22-24 to a wife to make her submit, then he needs to spend more time considering his role as directed by God from Ephesians 5:25-33!
Jesus’ call for us to submit is supposed to be a blessing if we are all living in obedience to Him. If a man is truly living out His role to love unconditionally, serve sacrificially, and lead with excellence, it makes it easy to submit. Let’s pray for the hearts of the husbands and leaders around us as well as the hearts of women as we see to follow.
In all things, we look to Jesus. We have already seen how Jesus leads the church. He treated women with great respect and dignity at a time when they were often not treated well. The Bible is clear that women and men are of equal value in God’s sight.
In the Bible, we are told Jesus submits to the will of the Father for the plan of our redemption that He helped to create. Jesus is a great example of perfect submission. Each of us are instructed to submit to God (James 4:7), submit to our church leaders (Hebrews 13:17), and to governing authorities (Romans 13:1).
The church as a whole submits to our perfect head: Jesus. In Ephesians, Paul is encouraging us to consider that our marriages are intended to point others to Jesus – the One who saves eternally. This means even our ordinary, everyday lives can be used by our extraordinary God to show His great love for the world. That is definitely something to aspire to in our marriages or to consider carefully when deciding who to date or marry.
