Husband Expressing Love

Monday, July 2, 2007

From Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart.

Brothers, as husbands (or future ones), our love is to be expressed as sacrifice. (Eph 5:25-27). [p138]

...Christ loved his bride, and it came throuh sacrifice. Christ did not sacrifice his headship (thereby abandoning his calling); he was expressing it. Christ's supreme act of headship was to go ahead and do what was required, even sacrificing his own life, to serve his bride the church. He did not say, to put in the creedal form of every passive husband, "Yeah, whatever." This is not sacrifice; it is abondonment. Nor even though he is God, did he lord it over people. He woos and wins through love and patience. [p138]

...Manly love looks to sacrifice. We lay our own wants and desires down in order to serve her wants and desires. This is not an absolute but a disposition. Not all her desires are consistent with God's desires, and so we must please Him above all others. But to the degree that there is no conflict between God's holiness and our wife's happiness, we are willing to make the sacrifice. [p139]