March 8, 2015

• What to do now?

  What to do when your wife shafts you?  When your wife disrespects you in public and private, hurts you emotionally, talks about divorce, lies about you to other people, and generally does not fulfil her marriage vows that she made to you?

  For a Christian husband, there is only one option.

  Keep on loving her.

  "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."
  Ephesians 5:25-30

  The command to husbands is unconditional: "love your wives".  It does not say "love her IF she treats you well".

  The word for love here is "agape" love - unconditional love, choosing to put the other person's needs above your own.  It is not romantic love or "warm feelings" love.  Marriages always start out with warm romantic feelings, and there always comes a point after a few months or years where those feelings vanish, and things get hard.  At that point, the husband who is following Christ must "choose to keep loving (agape) his wife", even though he doesn't feel like it.

  Christian husbands are to love their wife "as Christ loved the church."  Does Christ give up on us (the Church) when we sin?  Does he say, "I'm not going to love you any more! You have hurt me too much!"  No, he continues to love, forever.  Consider how much you and I have sinned.  Are we innocent?  But Jesus forgives us every single day, of so much more wickedness than the wife has done to you.

  At this point, someone will say, "But Tim, you don't understand!  She has said SO many hurtful things to me!  She has lied so much about me to other people!  She has hurt my reputation permanently!  She has done so many bad things to me!  I just can't keep on loving her.  It's impossible."

  My response is that the Bible's commands to Christian husbands are not conditional.  They apply just as much when the wife is hard to love.  That's where the rubber meets the road.  That's where the true manhood rises up...  the true spiritual strength... to follow Christ and obey His command even when it hurts.

  What about the past?  Forget about the past.  Each day is a new day.  A new chance to 'turn over a new leaf' and show love to your wife.  If she doesn't respond, keep doing it.  Keep showing love to her every way you can, even if she rejects you every day for the rest of her life, and even if you don't feel like it.  Why?  The reward Christ will give you when you see Him is huge and eternal!

  "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." -- Jesus Christ, Revelation 22:12-13

  "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
  Philippians 3:13-14

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