Love According to the Bible

The best explanation of love in the Bible is in I Corinthians 13, also known as the Love Chapter. It starts out saying “if you have not love, you are nothing, you have nothing.” It then goes on to explain what love is.

I Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

If we would keep these guidelines for love in our marriage relationships, we would not have divorce. If we practice these principles, we will always feel that romantic, “can’t live without you” love we experience in the beginning. Most of us lived up to these standards while we were dating our spouse.

I Corinthians 13 is a prerequisite to true love and needs to be continually carried out in our marriages. We are exhorted throughout the Bible to love God, love our neighbors, love our enemies, do everything in love. In pertaining to the marriage relationship, the husband is told numerous times to love his wife.

Ephesians 5:25-30 says, “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 his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.”
These are very powerful verses that strongly suggest the utmost devotion to one’s wife. Nothing (but God Himself) should be held in higher esteem than a wife. These verses compare a husband-wife relationship to that of Christ and the church. Jesus gave Himself up for the church, in death, that we could be blameless.

Giving one’s life for another is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate love, as Jesus showed us. This expresses God’s amazing love for us and Ephesians 5 suggests that kind of love for a husband to his wife. It is a tremendous commitment.

Husbands have the most important, most difficult task in the relationship. They need to take the lead. They are held to the highest level of responsibility. If they can’t fulfill their duties towards the wife, she is unable to meet his needs.

The number one emotional need of women is to feel loved. If they feel as though they are truly loved, everything runs smoothly and they will naturally meet the needs of their husband. When women begin to lose that security, things start falling apart. So what does God admonish men to do over and over in the Bible? He tells them to “Love your wife!”

Comments

Anonymous said…
I am 24yrs of age. I got married at the age of 17. I had a baby outside of marriage(pregnant @ 16yrs). One day in church my childs father(now my husband) went up for pray. At that moment I was called up there and we were then married. I thought it was ok at first. Then a yr later the arguements where intense. There was never any type of counseling just to high school students with a baby and no jobs married to each other. My husband life growing up was so messed up. His real father was on drugs and his mother(husband mother) left him. His mother later was married to another man who was a terror to my husband life. My husband felt like his mother's present husband damaged the relationship between him & his mother. So its like your parents r on the earth but the mother & father relationship isn't there. His father has like 7 other kids. It all plays a role in the damage. Me on the other hand grew up with both of my parents in the home and all my sibling r really close to each other. My family didn't have everything growing up but we had each other. My mom and dad r still together til this day and r so in love. My marriage started falling apart when he walked out and cheated 2yrs after marriage. Then the lies and miss trust lingrued on. My feelings for the marriage went from hope to hopeless. I expressed my emotions physically, tears, starved myself cause I was so depressed, I shut everyone out my life, and I couldn't focus on school at all. It let me broke, unachieved, and confused. After a few yrs of tryin to figure all of this out, it left me more confused unsecure and scared. I ended up calling myself tryin to leave him and I ended up cheating on him. After cheating my feelings about my husband changed. I no longer feel the need to cry over pass hurts he put me through. All I want to do is move on with my life. He wants to b apart of my life but I feel I never wanted this to happen, but because it did I don't know how to feel about marriage anymore.
Unknown said…
Both men and women add to the destruction of the marriage, each look out for their own best interest and should be the opposite. The wife's priority should be: God, then her husband, then her kids. The man's priority should be: God, then his wife,then the kids. Both should strive equally to maintain this heavenly order,otherwise it will not work out in time.

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