A Husband’s High Calling
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
Ephesians 5:25 NASB
Marriage is more than a covenant between two people—it is a living portrait of Christ and His bride. Nowhere is this more profoundly displayed than in Ephesians 5:25, where the apostle Paul exhorts husbands to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the Church. It’s not a casual comparison. It’s a call to radical, sacrificial, God-empowered love.
And it changes everything.
A Love Not Found Within Ourselves
In Marriages that Minister, we reflect on the reality that the kind of love God requires from husbands is not one they naturally possess. Paul doesn’t ask men to muster up more affection or effort. Instead, he calls them to reach through Christ, not within themselves, to love their wives with divine, sanctifying love.
The assignment is for the husband to give what he does not possess and for the wife to receive what she does not want. What a perfecting paradigm!
Marriages that Minister, J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis
This love isn’t designed to satisfy selfish desires but to bless the soul. It is often unwelcome to our flesh because it refines rather than indulges. This is why Paul connects marital love to Christ’s sanctifying work: “so that He might sanctify her… having no spot or wrinkle… holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:26–27).
But this doesn’t mean the husband becomes his wife’s preacher or her fixer. It means he becomes like Jesus.
To Love Like Christ, Be Like Christ
How does a husband love like Jesus? By engendering Christ in his heart, embodying Him in his life, and exemplifying Him in his marriage.
1. Engender the Heart of Christ
To love well, a husband must first be shaped by the heart of Christ. Not by ideals of masculinity crafted from culture or media, but by intimacy with the One who is Love. As 1 John 3:2–3 reminds us, we are being shaped into His likeness—and that hope purifies us.
2. Embody Christ in Everyday Living
Loving like Jesus means living like Jesus. It’s not about role-playing goodness. It’s about Christlikeness. When a husband sits at the feet of Jesus, he rises ready to care for his wife—not from duty, but from devotion. His love becomes a lifestyle that glorifies God.
The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
1 John 2:6 NASB
3. Exemplify Christ in Marriage
Marriage becomes the battlefield where selfishness is slain and love is lifted high as a banner. The watching world sees the unmistakable evidence of Christ’s love: patient, kind, enduring, forgiving.
As Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
John 13:35 NASB
The Superpower of Christlike Love
If we could pour this kind of love into our marriages, what would it look like?
Paul describes it plainly:
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
1 Corinthians 13:4–8 NLT
It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
…love will last forever!
This is not sentimentalism. This is supernatural power—God’s power, coursing through a soul fully surrendered to Christ. What a gift! But what a responsibility! What a ministry!
Your Marriage Is a Ministry
In Marriages that Minister, we invite couples to see their marriage not as a private relationship, but as a public display of God’s glory. The husband who loves like Christ preaches the gospel without saying a word—through patience, sacrifice, and soul-deep devotion. And the wife who receives this love with trust reflects the beauty of the Church in submission to her Savior.
Marriage isn’t easy—but it is holy.
It’s not just about being happy together. It’s about becoming holy together.
So let us love—not with what we have, but with what Christ gives. Let us live—not according to our design, but His. And let our marriages minister—first to one another, then to a watching world.
Want to Learn More?
Explore how your marriage can reflect the sacred relationship between Christ and His Church.
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Excerpts from Marriages that Minister by J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis. Available from your favorite book retailers, including Amazon and Redemption Press. (As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.)
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Read more about Marriages that Minister: A Portrait of Christ and His Bride.
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