A Good Marriage is Based on Christ

Many leaders spend more time talking about how to have a good marriage, when our growing knowledge of God's love for us enables us to love our wives in turn.

22Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." (Ephesians 5: 22-25)

 Paul instructed the church in Ephesus to love their spouses in Chapter 5. In the four previous chapters, Paul explains to them who they are, and prays that they will receive a growing revelation of their new identity in Christ:

"[I pray] That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (Ephesians 1: 17)

Paul then outlines all that God has done for them and for us through Jesus:

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

First, Paul wants us to have a growing revelation of God. He then explains who they are in Christ. Then he invites the Ephesians to receive a greater revelation of God's love for them:

"16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3: 16-19)

The more that we understand God's love, the more that we can then love our spouses.

Churches and leaders: tell your parishioners about Christ and Him Crucified. Reveal to them all that God is and has done for them at the Cross, and how He has brought us into His family and made us one with Him (John 17: 21-23) Then they will have the grace and peace to love their spouses.