A Gift From God 14

Happy Valentine’s Day 2015!  Today is the day that world celebrates love, lust and sex.  Yes, I said it.  Look around you and you can see it everywhere.  There is tremendous hubub about the new movie “50 Shades of Grey”.  If you want my opinion; Christians have no business watching the movie, reading the book or any other thing related to it.  Rant over.

As we think about Valentine’s Day we think about love.  For you and I love is vastly different from the world’s view of love.  They see it more as lust.  There are different words in the original languages of the Bible that are translated love.  No, I am not going to get into all of that.  A study like that would be another series.  Maybe another time.

Someone said that as Adam named the animals he noticed there was no mate for him.  God brought Eve to him and when he saw her he said, ‘Woe man!”  Supposedly, this is where she received the name of woman.  Not really.

God brought a perfect mate to Adam and gave her to him.  They enjoyed perfect love.  They enjoyed a perfect relationship to and with their God.  Then sin entered.  As a result of sin we have this curse that passes down to all generations from Adam to you and I.  Because of this curse we now have many consequences.  Just like sex outside of marriage often brings consequences that are not to be desired.

Yet, we are to love.  In Ephesians chapter 5 Paul gives us wise counsel for Valentine’s Day and even beyond.  This counsel will bring marital bliss for the ages if we will submit to it.

First of all he tells the ladies to be submissive.  Look at Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”  Because men and women are wired differently we have different needs.  We have the same basic needs; but, past that they become different.  Why did Paul instruct wives to “submit” to their own husbands?  Men have needs that are met by a wife in submission to him.  To men it is black and white.  We don’t talk about it, we fix it.  The deepest need of the man is admiration.

Now; men, Paul addresses us.  Notice what we are told in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”  He tells us to “love your wives,”.  Notice he did not say love somebody else’s wife.  A woman needs love and romance.  They are wired that way.  They are wired differently than a man.   The deepest need of a woman is romance.  We would do well to learn this valuable truth.  It might save a lot of time in the dog house.

So, once we learn our differences and begin to appreciate them we can begin to be fulfilled by the gift God has given to us in our spouse.

So, how are you doing?