My most important role, and the most important relationship next to my relationship with the Lord, is being a faithful, loving husband to my wife, Deb. It’s also the role I unintentionally but frequently take for granted.
God gave us marriage to illustrate His love relationship with us – Jesus is the bridegroom and we are His bride. A man is to love his wife unconditionally, as Jesus loves His church, going so far as to be willing to die for her, and the wife is to respect her husband. A man is to protect his wife as one who is vulnerable because she is generally more open, caring and trusting.
Deb is the most precious of gifts God has given to me, and I am learning how to receive that gift each and every day, and to treat her as she deserves to be treated, as I’m commanded to treat her, with love and honor, always building her up and praising her.
Done right, God’s way, marriage is the most powerful bond on earth! I thank the Lord for my wife, Deb, and pray daily for Him to continue to grow me, to mold me into the husband He designed me ultimately to be.
Work In Progress!
Ephesians 5:25-33 (NASB)
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
Colossians 3:19 (NASB)
Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.
1 Peter 3:7 (NASB)
You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
Proverbs 5:15-19 (NASB)
Drink water from your own cistern And fresh water from your own well.
Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets?
Let them be yours alone And not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.
Genesis 2:18-25 (NASB)
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.