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EP 100: Showing True Biblical Love to Our Husband

by Marci Ferrell
Biblical Womanhood Christian Living Communication in Marriage Marriage Podcast Respect Titus 2

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Take a moment with me, ladies, to remember back to the early days of marriage. You loved to see your husband's face, hear his voice, and feel his touch.

To be near him, hold his hand, or delight in a long sweet conversation. Laughing together, taking long walks, love notes, sweet phone calls, and all the other gifts that let you know you were loved and cherished by each other.

No one had to tell you to delight and cherish him.

Let's fast forward ten years. Life happens. Days are busy. Many areas are calling for your time and attention.

There are children to care for and love, homes to clean, bills to pay, meals to cook, piles of laundry, and ministry work to be done. We are also a bit more aware of the faults of our husband and hopefully our own too.

Your husband married a sinner, and you married a sinner.

The amazing and beautiful part of that is that God forgives sinners and helps us be more like Him. When we are in Christ, God uses our marriages to sanctify us and grow us more Christlike. One of those areas is growing us in love with God and each other.


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(You can read it below in 12 minutes or listen in to the podcast (28 minutes) where I share more content)

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Marriage Series at Thankful Homemaker

Put On Put Off Bible Study

Video: Showing True Biblical Love to Our Husbands


Loving Our Husband:

In Titus 2:3-4, the older women are told to teach the younger women to love their husbands.

The word for love in this verse is not agape (self-sacrificing) but phileo. Phileo love is a tender, affectionate and passionate kind of love. It emphasizes enjoyment and respect in a relationship. I
It is the love you would see between close friends.

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So we need to ask ourselves – does the love you show to your husband resemble that of a love between close friends?

The Lord knew we women were good at sacrificial love. We are good to do his laundry, cook his meals and raise his children, but the sad part is we can do that without even feeling tender affection for him.

We can get so busy serving our husbands that we don't enjoy them.

Before we think we're off the hook from showing agape love to our husbands, I want to remind us that in Mark 12:31, the second and greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves and our husbands are our closest neighbor.

And in John 13:34-35, we're told:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As a Christian, I am commanded to love my husband just as I am commanded to love others. Love in this verse is also agape love, and it is to be given where there is nothing given in return. It is a choice.

I also want to share the command in Titus 2:3 does not come with a contingency clause. It does not say “if” they are godly men or “if” they're worthy of this kind of love or deserving of it. We are called to love them regardless of their response or actions. It is a true unconditional love.

One of the best questions we can ask ourselves in regard to our marriages is, “how can I bring honor to the gospel as a wife?” One way is to show love to our husband as God's Word calls us to.

If we're in Christ, we are equipped to do this – 1 John 4:19 reminds us – we love because He first loved us.

“Put On, Put Off”:

Colossians 3:12-14 states:
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Colossians 3:12-14 shares what the Lord calls us to “put on” as believers.

As a young believer, I first came across the “Put On, Put Off” principle in reading The Excellent Wife. It's based on the principles in Ephesians 4 regarding what bad habits we are to “put off” and what good habits we are to “put on.”

We're called “to put off the old self” (Eph 4:22) and to “put on the new self” (Eph 4:24). We came to Christ with habits and ways of thinking that are difficult to break in our own strength, and they can cause a lot of issues in our marriages.

As Christians, we have become new creations by the work of the Lord in us at the moment of salvation. We are made new.

But many times, the attitude in our homes doesn't match up to what we profess to believe. We can find ourselves being unloving, impatient, selfish, and angry with those we love most.

Walk in Love:

In our flesh, we don't put God and others first. Love is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), and being in Christ, you possess the fruit of the Spirit.

When our hearts are being ruled by the Spirit we will only desire the very best for someone. Jesus is our perfect example of how love acts (Eph. 5:2).

When our hearts are being ruled by the Spirit we will only desire the very best for someone. Jesus is our perfect example of how love acts (Eph. 5:2). Click to Tweet

Ephesians 5:2.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

I am not stating that we will be perfect because that isn't possible here on this earth, but our walk with the Lord should be continually growing and changing us more into the likeness of Christ.

We often don't see much growth because we don't take the time to replace the old bad habits with new good habits that reflect obedience to God's Word and what He desires for us. It's easy for us to fall back into our normal default mode.

One way to change our thinking is to continue to saturate our minds and thoughts with God's Word. We know from God's Word that what is inside our hearts will come out in our behavior and responses.

So a change in our behavior needs to start in the heart. God uses His Word to bring about that heart transformation in us. Every time we choose to replace a sinful desire or action with a biblical one, we're being renewed in our minds and hearts.

How Love Acts:

We know how love acts by reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, and there are ways we can practically live that out with God's help. We know love is patient, so we can speak to our husbands with a calm and loving voice.
We know love is not arrogant, so we can respond respectfully and correct gently when needed.

You may be saying to yourself, “Am I a hypocrite by doing something when I don't feel like it?”

A quote I heard from Lou Priolo was such a helpful response to that comment:
“You are never being a hypocrite when you obey God's Word.”

On the flip side, when we do what we feel and don't obey God's Word, we're in sin.

Sadly, we usually just react and don't tend to see or desire change for our lives' sinful patterns and responses.

What would our marriages look like if we responded to our husbands with love instead of impatience or anger?

In 1 Timothy 4:7-8, the Lord calls us to discipline ourselves for the sake of godliness, and when we obey God's Word to do that, He helps us to supernaturally fulfill that calling. He will continue to change us to be more like Jesus.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us a beautiful description of what love looks like:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The word for love here is agape. Agape is “a caring, self-sacrificing commitment which shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved.” In His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus Christ is our perfect example of this kind of love.

How might this practically look like lived out in our marriages? (I share much more in the podcast episode, but we'll briefly look at them here).

Love is patient:


So love never tires of waiting. When I'm showing patience, I'm slow to anger; I endure wrongs against me without retaliating.

Love is kind:


I can be friendly, generous, and warm towards my husband. I can respond in kind even when responses against me aren't kind.

Love does not envy (also translated as jealous):


The descriptions of love are now turning to the negative “love is not”
Someone who truly loves another is never jealous or envious but glad for their success and even if that success works against their own.

Love does not boast:


I heard it said it is impossible to build ourselves up without putting others down. We don't need to flaunt our knowledge or abilities or accomplishments or whatever within our marriages.

Love is not arrogant:


Arrogance is a lack of respect for another person in that you ignore how he would feel and assert your own decision.

Arrogance is big-headed. Love is big-hearted -John MacArthur Click to Tweet

Love is not rude:


Do I find myself being sarcastic with my husband? Am I polite?

“Love does not behave gracelessly.”

~ William Barclay

Love does not insist on its own way:


Love seeks the interests of others (Phil 2:4), and puts their needs above our own.

Love is not irritable:


Biblical love does not easily take offense, and it seeks the well being of others.

Love is not resentful (some translations say love does not take into account a wrong suffered):


If we're keeping track of every wrong done against us, it's not going to make for a very fruitful, loving marriage. Love doesn't keep score!!

Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing:


We don't rejoice in sin. When we love God, what offends Him will offend us. We grieve when others fall into sin—we don't gloat. If they repent—we rejoice.

Love rejoices at the truth:


Love appreciates good and truthful things in others, and when we see those things in our husbands, we need to rejoice and encourage them. Love builds up and doesn't tear down.

Love bears all things:


Love covers everything. Love doesn't broadcast failures; it protects.

Love believes all things:


I desire to think the best about my husband. Love always grants a do-over.

Love hopes all things:


Love will find a way to begin again

“Love refuses to take failure as final. The rope of love's hope has no end. As long as there is life, love does not lose hope. When our hope becomes weak, we know our love has become weak.”

~ John MacArthur

Love endures all things:


Love never gives up on anyone or quits. Love will never stop loving. When love abounds in a relationship – many small offenses and even some large ones are readily overlooked and forgotten (1 Peter 4:8).

Err on the Side of Love:

God has laid out for us in His Word what love looks like. It should be my joy as a believer to obey His commands (1 John 5:3). When we desire to please the Lord, those old ways of thinking will have less of a stronghold on us in time.

Over time, we will see right responses being more dominant and wrong ones showing up less and less.

When we have sinful patterns in our lives that we have practiced for years, it is not a quick fix, so don't be discouraged but continue to fight the good fight.

God's grace works in and through us, but it is still man's responsibility to work with God at it (Philippians 2:12-13).

Take the time to recognize your sinful thinking. Pray and seek the Lord and ask Him what you should have been thinking. What thoughts or responses would be God-honoring?

My reminder to us is to look to Christ. He is our most important relationship.

We are a work in progress, and I'm thankful the Lord does not leave us where we are but continues to mold us more into the image of His Son. Our marriages are a beautiful tool He uses to sanctify us and expose our rough edges and continue to refine them. Give thanks in and through all things knowing that God is working all things for good to those who love them.

Pray that the Lord would help you today to dwell on the good things you see in your husband.

Scripture References from the Podcast:

  • Titus 2:3-4
  • Mark 12:31
  • John 13:34-35
  • Colossians 3:12-14
  • Ephesians 4:22-24
  • Galatians 5:22-23
  • Ephesians 5:2
  • 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
  • 1 Timothy 4:7-8
  • 2 Peter 3:9
  • Philippians 2:4
  • Matthew 20:28
  • Romans 4:8
  • Proverbs 10:12
  • 1 Peter 4:8
  • 1 John 5:3

Recent Posts:

  • EP 105: Practical Steps to Overcome Self Pity
  • EP 104: Blessed are Those Who are Persecuted (Sermon on the Mount Series – Matthew 5:10-12)
  • EP 103: Simple Tips to Read More Books
  • EP 102: Blessed are the Peacemakers (Sermon on the Mount Series – Matthew 5:9)
  • EP 101: Trusting God with the Impossible as Mothers

Related posts:

  1. Addressing Our Husband’s Sin
  2. EP 82: Encouraging Your Husband {Elisabeth Elliot’s 80/20 Rule}
  3. Are You Kind to Your Husband?
  4. EP 18: Putting on an Attitude of Love in Our Homes


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Comments

  1. Michelle says

    at

    The link for the Martha Peace study is not working. I would really like to do the study if you could find the correct link. I have the book and I didn’t even realize all the valuable information in the back of it! Thank you for bringing my attention to it.

    Reply
    • Marci Ferrell says

      at

      Michelle – thank you so much for letting me know. I updated it and this one should work for you. Her book is such a good resource! –http://marthapeacetew.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-put-offput-on-bible-study.html

      Reply

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Marci Ferrell
"Self Pity is a death that has no resurrection, a "Self Pity is a death that has no resurrection, a sinkhole from which no rescuing hand can drag you because you have chosen to sink."⁣
~ Elisabeth Elliot⁣
⁣
The above quote is taken from yesterday's Episode 105: Practical Steps to Overcome Self-Pity - link to the podcast episode in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows in my profile).
I know we can all relate to self-pity as women, wi I know we can all relate to self-pity as women, wives, and mothers.  How many times do we focus on our needs that aren’t met?  Unfair situations or circumstances?  Self-pity is a selfish tendency that takes our eyes off Christ and puts them on ourselves.  We forget that “God works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” Are we able to give God “thanks in all things”?⁣
⁣
Come take a listen to EP 105: Practical Steps to Overcome Self-Pity at the link in my profile (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
"Your household is the most important schoolroom y "Your household is the most important schoolroom your children will ever know. And the lessons they learn don't begin and end when you crack open the family Bible. They are always watching and learning from your example—often without even realizing it. That's a tremendous responsibility and opportunity for Christian parents—one that we must make the most of, for God's glory and our children's good."⁣
 ~ John MacArthur⁣
⁣
Come listen to EP 20: The Blessings of Loving Our Children at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
"The visible church is where you will find Christ' "The visible church is where you will find Christ's kingdom on earth, and to disregard the kingdom is to disregard its King."⁣
~ Michael Horton⁣
⁣
Read - Building Loving Relationships In Your Church Family at the link in my bio @thankfuhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
Isaiah 48:10:Behold, I have refined you, but not a Isaiah 48:10:Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;  I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.⁣
⁣
Israel is being refined for the honor and glory of the Lord. I need the reminder that everything the Lord allows in my life is for my good and His glory. All that He does and allows is to further His eternal purposes. ⁣
⁣
He continues to remove the dross from my life in the furnace of affliction, and through each trial and circumstance of my life, the hope is I'm becoming more and more molded and shaped into the image of Christ. ⁣
⁣
Susan Huntington shared on this passage:⁣
"...if our blessed God sees that the disciple, like his Master, must be made perfect through sufferings, ought we not to welcome every means which will conduce to this blessed end? Can we desire to be babes in Christ all our days? If it is a proof of sonship to be chastised, may it not prove a special favor to be greatly chastised? ⁣
⁣
If we were asked what the greatest good is, should we not answer that it is conformity to God? If we were asked what the best circumstances are for the Christian to be placed in, should we not answer that they are those that will, most constantly and most effectually, promote his conformity to God? Shall we then pray for afflictions? By no means. We are weak, and are crushed before the moth. We should not pray for what we do not know that we could bear. ⁣
⁣
We should habitually pray for conformity to God, and quietly leave it to Him to determine by what means He will effect this blessed end."⁣
⁣
-Excerpt taken from my favorite devotional - Seasons of the Heart: A Year of Devotions from One Generation of Women to Another by Donna Kelderman (link to the book is in my profile @thankfulhomemaker - click on the link under the blue arrows, and then this image).
Preaching the gospel to yourself. It's a phrase we Preaching the gospel to yourself. It's a phrase we've all heard, and we all agree with, but deep down, we're like, okay, what does that look like? Or how do I make that practical in my day-to-day life when my marriage is hard? Or the kids are out of control? Or there's an illness in my family, or I'm just stuck in a sinful pattern? Or the house is in chaos, and I don't know where to begin? ⁣
⁣
The reality is we're always saying something to ourselves in our minds, especially in those moments of chaos or difficulty. ⁣
Is what we're speaking to ourselves centered on the truths of God's Word, or are we buying into the lies of the world? ⁣
We need to be talking to ourselves and not just listening to ourselves. But what do we need to be talking to ourselves about? ⁣
⁣
This is what we're going to work through together in EP 69: Preaching the Gospel to Yourself - link in my bio @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
"Your worst days are never so bad that you are bey "Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace."⁣
~ Jerry Bridges⁣
⁣
Read more at God's Blessing Does Not Depend On Our Performance at the link in my bio @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
How many times at church do you find yourself disc How many times at church do you find yourself discussing non-spiritual things? As believers, our relationships with others in the body of Christ are unlike anything non-believers will ever experience. It is such a joy when you come across another Christian that you haven't met before, and because of the common bond of Christ, it is as if you have known them forever.⁣
⁣
I have a favorite book that gets used quite often by Donald S. Whitney called Simplify Your Spiritual Life. In the section, Simplifying our Spiritual Life with Others, he guides us to drive the conversations into the spiritual. Wouldn't we all as believers like our conversations with other believers to be directed towards things related to knowing God, Bible reading and application, theology, evangelism, and prayer, to name a few.⁣
⁣
Mr. Whitney shares some questions that are a natural help in directing your conversations with your brothers and sisters in the faith to the spiritual.  This is a handy list to keep in your Bible, planner, or purse.⁣
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The link to the questions is in my bio @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
"If there is one maverick molecule in all the univ "If there is one maverick molecule in all the universe, then God is not sovereign. And if God is not sovereign, He is not God."⁣
~R. C. Sproul
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