Have you met, Susannah? She is a wonderful girl who blogs over at Simple Moments Stick. I love reading her blog. She truly has a heart that follows after the Lord, and she inspires me. Last month, I linked up with her for "In His Image." This month, the topic is The Bride of Christ.
One of the first things that came to mind when I saw the topic for this month's link up was a passage from Ephesians. It likens marriage between a man and woman to that of the relationship with Christ and the church:
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 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." Ephesians 5:21-28
That can be a lot to take in...especially all of that "submitting" stuff, but all you strong-willed women, don't go running out on me just yet.
I do not think that God intends for us to be doormats. I do not believe that this passage suggests that we bite our tongues, lay down, and get walked all over. Don't forget that after we are told to submit to our husbands, the husbands are told to love their wives. What I do think we are being told is to respect our husbands as we respect Christ. No one but Christ is perfect. Sure, we get mad at
Think about how many times Christ does that for us.
It really puts things into perspective doesn't it?
Each day is a new day to start with a clean slate. Those dirty clothes in the middle of the floor? Pick them up, and go on. Christ erases our slate each time we humble ourselves, come before him, and ask for forgiveness. If He can do this for us, so undeserving, it is certainly something we can do for a person we pledged to love "for better or for worse," isn't it?
2 comments:
Isn't it amazing that we have the complete picture of what a marriage relationship should look like in the Lord??!? :-)
I don't know if you tried to link this post up earlier when the silly linkup gadget wasn't working but it's working now. Please linkup your post so other women can be encouraged by what you have to say!
Becky I absolutely love this post. It's so true that we should be able to wipe the slate of our spouse just like Christ does for us. Corinthians says that love is not irritable so that is something I am trying to remind myself of when I get irritated with my husband. We are so blessed to be the bride of Christ our relationship with him should encourage us to be better wives to our husbands.
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