Hubbies and future hubbies
Hey Guys,
I wanted to give the guys a bit of discipleship in the area of husbandry and the ladies something to think about as you look for a hubby. Ladies, I’ll try to explain biblical submission in a later post, so please don’t just choke on the, badly misused and poorly understood, word I’m going to use a lot in this post.
So why in the world do I feel like I can speak to this… well I don’t. But the Lord has been laying this on my heart for awhile… so it’s time for me to practice obedience rather than “waiting on the Lord” for different instructions. 
The whole Bible is relevant as far as husband/wife relationships go; after all, we as believers are called the bride of Christ. Jesus didn’t use that analogy just because it fit, but it fits, because He created marriage so that our finite minds would have some understanding of how we can relate to Him. But I’m just going to hit a couple of key verses that really speak to me as a husband and the head of our home.
Ephesians 5:25, 28-29, 33
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, … So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. … Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
This whole chapter is a great chapter on marital relationship, but from these few verses here, I wanted to pull out two questions. And I’ll attempt to give some insight that has helped me in my daily walk as a husband.
How did Christ love the Church?
To answer this first, I think the below verse is a fantastic description of what Jesus did for us, the Church, because He loved us, that we might be saved.
Phil 2:5-8
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Think about this… God entered His creation, but He didn’t do it in a flashy way and didn’t exalt Himself or force people to follow His will. Instead, He came as a bondservant, not to “be served” but to serve; He didn’t lord His position, as King of kings, over anyone. But He came as a poor common person to a poor family under a suspicious parental situation. So what does this have to do with a husband? We are not to expect to “be served”, but to serve. We are not to lord our role, of leader, over our wives. We should approach them as servants to lead them, in a way that causes them to desire to follow us in following Jesus. Ultimately, Jesus has left us the choice to submit to Him or not, and likewise it is a wife’s choice to submit to her husband’s authority or not. It is not our role, or job, as husband to make her submit. If your wife knows that her best interests are only second to God’s will in your decision making, then you are making the choice for your wife, to follow you, much easier. If on the other hand hobbies, money, personal comfort or any other thing is consistently taking priority over your wife, then you as a husband are placing a stumbling block in your wife’s path, to obeying the Lord in submitting to you.
How do we love our wives as ourselves?
It’s easy to love our “neighbors” at church as ourselves. A little harder to love our “neighbors” at work as ourselves. Sometimes really hard to love our “neighbors” that happen to be our in-laws and family as ourselves. But it is probably most difficult to love our “neighbor” who we happen to be married to, as ourselves. The closer that law of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ gets to home, the more it requires us to “deny ourself, pick up our cross daily, and follow” Him in being a servant leader. The tendency in my heart is to make sure I’m comfortable and that I’m not getting slighted in any way. As an example, I was invited to go to a buddy’s house the other day… but I hadn’t spent much time with Orna that week, so even though I kind of wanted to go, I really just wanted to stay home and hang out with her. But, we didn’t really get a chance to talk about it because Orna had to run to the store, and wound up being gone pretty late. I started to get mad, not because I really wanted to go to my friends house that night, but because I felt like she didn’t care whether I wanted to go or not. Turns out she ran into a friend that she hadn’t been in touch with for almost a year. If you know Orna, running into a friend that she is in daily contact with can take a long time, so you can imagine this conversation. Anyway, notice in that little incident, that I picked up an offense that wasn’t even there to begin with, and it was completely self centered. I wanted her to take MY feelings into consideration. And she should take my feelings into consideration. But, the way for me to lead her in that, is to first take her feelings/desires into my consideration, not by just telling her to “do what I want you to do for me, even if I’m not willing to do it for you”. Jesus didn’t ask us to give up our lives without leading us. He first demonstrated dieing to himself, “even the death on the cross”.
To love our wives as ourselves, we need to be willing to do some things that are not comfortable or natural for us, but because it makes them feel loved.
1 Corinthians 7:3-4
Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
Notice, that this verse speaks first to husbands. If, by nature, you’re not affectionate or don’t like to show affection in public, die to yourself and render the affection due to your wife. God has given her authority over your body too, and you should give her as much affection as is necessary for her to feel loved by you, as long as you are not being manipulated or pulled into sin.
To wrap this whole mess up, I would have to say that if God blesses you with a wife, you need to take your role as leader very seriously. You will stand before Him someday and give an account for how you’ve lead your wife, not how she has followed(she will be accountable for that). Always have in mind, “is my leadership drawing her closer to Jesus, or just closer to doing what I want her to do”.
Ladies if your looking for a husband, two very important things to look for. First, is he a disciple of Jesus. Second is he committed to servant leadership, or to being served himself. You as his wife will be required, by the Lord, to be under his leadership. So take the opportunity before you get married to make sure he is someone who you want in leadership over you. Not taking both of these considerations seriously will cause you a lot of pain in your marriage.
God Bless,
Joel
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