Sunday, April 28, 2013

Modeling Christ in our Relationships

1st John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.”
Now, just as an aside to show how Scripture affects our everyday life, I want you to see how this applies to our marriage relationships. Think about how your courtship and engagement went. Why is it that the guy asks the girl out on a date? Why is it that he is the one pursuing and wooing in the relationship - bringing the flowers and opening doors? And why is it the man who gets down on one knee and proposes? It’s because Jesus pursued us. And we, as the church, are His bride

Ephesians 5 contains a long passage on marriage. It is a passage that talks about the husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church, and it talks about the wife submitting to her husband as to the Lord. But here’s the key verse to understand this long section: Ephesians 5:32 says: “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Oh, we thought Paul was talking about husbands and wives, but he wasn’t. He was really talking about Christ and the church - Jesus and His bride. Not only is that relationship between Christ and the church our example as husbands and wives, but we actually are supposed to model that relationship before the world. We are to be a living picture that is meant to show how it is in the spiritual realm.
So, if Jesus seeks His bride, the church, and woos her, we men seek our brides, and we woo them. The man is the initiator of the relationship because Jesus first loved the church. The husband is commanded to love his wife, while she is commanded to submit to (or respond), and later respect her husband.

Interestingly, in Titus 2:3-4, we see the older women are to teach the younger women how to love their husbands. They learn to love their husbands in response to the love they are shown by them. Our closest human relationships pattern the divine ones, and Christ initiated love toward us. We simply respond to that great love. “We love Him because He first loved us.”

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