The Role of a Husband and the Wisdom You Need to Succeed at it – Part I

Wisdom, we all want it, but few actually obtain it. Today I write to the husbands about the wisdom you will need to fulfill the role that God has given you. In your God-given role as a husband, you will need to love your wife, sacrifice for her and lead her. A husband must learn to be considerate of his wife and respect her. But what does all of this really mean?

Ephesians 5:25-28 New International Version (NIV)

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing^[a] her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Picture This

I want you to think for a minute. What picture comes to your mind when you hear the word “Vows”?

I, Eduardo, take you, Yolanda, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish, so long as we both shall live.

You probably thought about your wedding day if you are married. That is the day that I took on a new role in my life, a role that I did not have before that day, the role of husband.

If you are married, the same thing happened to you, you took on a new role. When you hear those words, they seem pretty straight forward for the most part.

I was making an agreement to be Yolanda’s husband when we were getting along and when we weren’t getting along, committing to her that I would be there. I was making an agreement then that for the future I would not leave her if we encountered some rough times. I made agreement that I would be there if we had a lot of money or just little money. I made agreement that I would be there and be her husband even when she was sick or well.

What Does Love Look Like?

Do you have an idea of what that looks like in life? sure you do! But then the next words make a promise to love and to cherish. What does that look like? What does it mean to Love Your Wife? We need to know that, because our text today starts out with this command for husbands.

Paul, having just finished discussing the role of the wife, now turns to the role of the husband and begins with this command.

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives,

We hear and say those words often, but what do they mean? Does it mean that you should conjure up strong feelings for your wife? Should you buy them some chocolate? Maybe you should let her watch her favorite TV show. I have an idea, you should do everything that she wants! That’s it (Being facetious now)!

No, Really…. How Do you Do It?

What does loving your wife look like in real life? What does loving your wife look like in your life? That is what I want to talk about today.

Throughout this series, I am talking about the practicalities of playing the different parts that God has designed for us. Not just what sounds good, but how that might look like in real life; in your life.

So what does loving your wife look like? How is it lived out? Paul gives us a couple of things in this text to help us see what loving our wife will look like. We will also see what Peter has to say to husbands about what loving our wives should look like.

God has told us in His word how to truly love our wives in such a way as to help her be the woman of God He wants her to be, which in turn will be of great value to us. One of the first ways that our love should manifest itself is called sacrifice.

Sacrifice for Your Wife

Ephesians 5:25

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Christ gave Himself up for the church, He sacrificed Himself for it, and we as husbands need to sacrifice for our wives.

My last two articles were directed to the wives. I wrote a very unpopular article about the S word; submission. Submission is not an easy aspect of being a wife. Well this is the S word for husbands, Sacrifice. Sacrifice is not an easy aspect of being a husband. But what does sacrifice entail? Does this mean that we only do what our wives want? Should we give up everything we ever dream about if our wife does not want to do that?

What’s the Purpose?

No, that’s not it at all! We have to realize what the purpose of our sacrifice is. You see, sacrifice does two things. It shows the reality of our love for our wives and it helps them to be holy.

Sacrificial love will benefit your wife in ways that will better enable her to be holy. It will also help her grow in her own relationship with God and ultimately help her follow your godly leadership.

When someone sacrifices something for someone else, it speaks love. Jesus sacrificed for the church not because we deserved it. He sacrificed because He loved us.

John 15:13

13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

(from New International Version)

Romans 5:7-8

7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

(from New International Version)

The Example of Christ

Christ sacrificed because of His love for us. His sacrifice showed the depth of his love for us. We need to sacrifice because of our love for our wives. We can say we love our wives all we want, but the reality of our love will be shown in our actions.

John tells us to love in action.

1 John 3:18 says

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (from New International Version)

OK, so what does that sacrifice look like during the week? How can you be a blessing to your wife and help her become holy? First,  having a spirit and an attitude of sacrifice is going to go a long way in speaking love to your wife. When your wife knows that she is important enough for you to sacrifice for, she is going to be better able to follow your leadership with a pure heart.

Knowing how much the Lord has loved you helps you to follow when it gets difficult. The same is true for your wife. I am sure that there are many of you who have not been very sacrificial in your relationships with your wife.

What About you?

Maybe your marriage relationship has been struggling for a long time. Let me tell you that God has given you the awesome responsibility of being a sacrificial leader. If your marriage is going to get better, you are going to need to take some steps of sacrifice, to help your wife to be the holy woman of God that He wants her to be.

It’s important to let your wife know that you love her, but don’t do it with words alone, do it with your actions. Don’t go golfing every Saturday, instead plant some flowers for her in the front or back yard. Don’t watch the NASCAR race but instead go on a hike with your wife or go shopping with her (with a good attitude)!

Keep these things in perspective. Not golfing one week or not watching NASCAR is not the end of the world! However, this sacrifice will go a long way in helping your wife to know that she is loved. And guys, get this.

Ephesians 5:28b – He who loves his wife loves himself.

One Flesh!

God has made you and your wife one flesh. When you are sacrificing for your wife, you are sacrificing for yourself. When you are loving your wife, you are loving yourself. Husbands, we need to keep this in perspective. I am not saying that you can never play golf again or watch NASCAR. I am saying that when we willingly sacrifice something we like to do so our wives can do something they like, we are doing more to benefit our own lives than we could possibly realize.

Keep that in mind when the opportunity arises to sacrifice for your wife. Some of you may be saying, “You have no idea the home I live in. I don’t think I could sacrifice for my wife after how she has treated me”. She doesn’t deserve it! Well my friend, you don’t deserve Jesus’ love either! If we got what we deserved, we would be in a heap of trouble!

This is How it’s Done!

I want you to understand that this is how Jesus loves you. You don’t deserve the sacrifice He made for you, and our wives may not either, but that is the kind of love we are called to show our wives.

The S word for husbands is that we learn to sacrifice. Sacrificial love will pay huge dividends in your relationship with the woman you married. Do it now before it’s too late. I am going to stop here today. I think we have had enough! I will let you think about this for a while. Do it and you will have NO regrets! It’s Gods way of loving us, and if it works for God, it will surely work for you!

Until next time…. be a man!

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Eduardo Quintana is also featured as an author on Lightworkers Media