Love Her As You Love Yourself

 Love Her as You Love Yourself

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church- for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.-Ephesians 5:25-33.

Fellas, we are often thinking of marriage from a one way street. We want our wives to respect us and to submit to us but we aren't willing to love them as we love ourselves. We often treat our wives as second class citizens and not the blessing that they should be to us. Our wives are not just an extension of us, they are us! Who would deprive himself happiness, love, and respect? Yet we do this to our wives all too often. The bible tells us that we need to be considerate as we live with our wives, and treat them with respect. The Word goes as far as saying, that if we don't respect our wives, this could result in the Lord not hearing our prayers.- 1Peter 3:7.

Maybe some of us need to step up to the plate and become the men God expects us to be. We feel that we can run the streets, stay out all hours of the night, and visit places that disrespect our marriages. It's crazy how we want to burden our wives and criticize them for the things that they don't do and yet we do not recognize the inadequacies within ourselves. We wonder why our houses are always in turmoil but forget to acknowledge our part in this turmoil. We are supposed to be the priests of our homes and yet God is the last person on our minds.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.-Colossians 3:19. As men we tend to treat our wives as if they are just some dude walking down the street. Some of us aren't as loving as we could and/or should be. We can use the excuse that it's just not in our nature, but we would pretty much be lying. We knew how to be kind in the dating process so we should remember that this is the woman that we fell in love with and the woman to whom we promised all of these great things. Besides, when has being harsh to our wives provided us with happy moments?

I've never been big on the term “happy wife, happy life” but I do see the benefits of following the instructions set up by God. When a man follows God, his steps are illuminated. He begins to see things from a much better standpoint than before. He sees his wife as a help meet and as a gift. He sees that his actions towards his wife are the same steps Jesus took for all of us. In the end we should recognize that when we do as the Lord says, we are pleasing in His sight. From there, because we are pleasing to Him, we will then be pleased. I am not saying that everyday will be walks in the park and making love under the pale moonlight, however I bet your life would run a lot smoother.