A Husband's Love

Every once in awhile I get a little glimpse of the encompassing love of God, I would like to say my recent glimpse came in one day but I am a slow learner.  Over the past year, I have often had the thought that the way my husband shows me love is the same way Christ has shown humanity love.  Whenever I realize how blessed I am to have a husband who loves me in this way a feeling of completeness fills my very soul.  Yet I haven’t really taken the time to dive into the chapter in the Bible that references the love of husbands and of Christ.  Today, after attending the wedding of a friend, I was sitting with my husband and once again thinking of how much he has shown me love, and I began to think about the love of Christ.  So I pulled my Bible out, as well as a concordance and began to do some research.  What exactly did the Bible say about husbands that not only filled me with love for my husband but also for my Jesus?  I found my answer in Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:25-27

(25) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (26) to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, (27) and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

 Christ gave himself up for me, for us, to make us holy, he did this because we were not holy, we needed to be made holy.  The only way for us to be made holy was for Christ to die on the cross for our sins.  In verse 27 we find out why he did this for us.  It says “to present her to himself” we are not presenting ourselves to Christ and saying please accept me, no, he has made us holy so that he may present us to himself.  There is NOTHING we can do.  He has made us holy so that we may be with him.  When he looks at us he does not see our wrongs, our past, or our selfish choices, as it is written in Ephesians, he does not see our stains, wrinkles, or blemishes.  He sees us as holy and blameless.  So what does this have to do with husbands?  As you read my account below remember that  I am no theologian, I am only sharing with you the parallels I see with my life and this verse. 

In my past I made some choices that I believed would someday either prevent me from marrying or cause pain for myself and my husband to be.  With the prompting of the spirit, I made the decision that if I were to meet a man whom I believed I would marry, I needed to share with him my past before the end of our first month dating.  I met my husband in February, we became good friends, and soon I became comfortable sharing hints about my past with him, but never details.  In July I asked him to attend my brothers’ wedding with me and we both confessed having feelings for each other.  The next night I shared with him my past.  As a friend, he often reminded me that my sins were as far as the east is from the west.  As the man that I had just began dating and was sure I would someday marry, he held my hand, looked me in the eye and said Sheri, if Christ can throw your sins as far as the east is from the west, then so can I.  Just as Christ sees me without blemish, my husband chose to see me without blemish.  His ability to choose forgiveness was the start of an amazing relationship.  We were married after dating for one year.  We have now been married one year, in this short time my husband has again and again shown me forgiveness.  In showing me the love of Christ, my husband has shown me Christ.  This command that God gave husbands, was another way for him to show us his love.  This glimpse of God’s encompassing love was slow in coming, but hopefully it will stay with me forever. 

Praying that my readers will be Christ to those they come in contact with today.