Journal: How is God drawing out your beauty or strength these days? How are you doing that for others? How are you doing that in your family? Your marriage? How has Christ loved you? How is that a guide for how you love others?
Reflection: Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
Wives, understand and
support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband
provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by
domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he
exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
Husbands, go all out in your
love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by
giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her
beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,
dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how
husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a
favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.
No one abuses his own body,
does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church,
since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother
and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge
mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is
the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each
husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife
is to honor her husband. (Ephesians 5:21-33, The Message)
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