In Ephesians 5, Paul gives us a “blueprint” to a happy marriage. My book, The God Wild Marriage, is all about this passage. After selling out of the first version, the new book, version 2.0, has just come out. You can order it online at Amazon or purchase it at The Road Welcome Center, if you attend there. Here is a snippet:
The verse that stupefies and confuses more men is this little-read, less-understood and most often neglected verse: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” (Eph. 5:25). After thirty-four years of marriage, moving six times, in financial need and prosperity, raising seven children, planting two churches and starting a business together, I can honestly tell you men, this is THE VERSE for a happy marriage!
Step 1: Love your wife by entering her world! Jesus entered our world. Jesus left the comfort of His heavenly home and entered our earthy world. Yes, Jesus chose to leave His perfect environment and entered our sinful world. He gave up what He was most familiar with to enter the unfamiliar, sinful world that we live in. He did it because of love. He did it because you and I are beloved.
And so it is for us, as men. To truly love our wives, we must leave our masculine world and enter into our wife’s feminine world. We must leave our testosterone-soaked environment and dive into her strange, unfamiliar and estrogen-soaked world. Could anything be more foreign? Could any act be harder?
But if you want a successful marriage, your role is to enter into your wife’s labor, interests and learn her ways, love her for who she is and bless her as a woman. Study your wife and love her as beloved, in ways she understands and appreciates.
Step 2: Enter your wife’s world and die there! Jesus entered our world and He died for us. Believe me, if you choose to enter your wife’s world, you will die there. Die for your wife! This is the Kingdom Way of love. Men, if you desire a happy and joyful marriage, you will have to die daily for your wife. Die to self. Lead her? Yes, but lead her by loving her in the same say Jesus loves you—through death.
Entering and dying,
Steve
Steve Holt M.A., D.D.
