This week I spent five days looking at Ephesians 5:22-33. If you know the passage, it deals with marriage.
A God-honoring marriage can point a lost world to a loving Savior.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN THIS WEEK?
These are challenging verses for sure. The more I looked at them, the more I realized how I still do not have the whole idea of submission down fully. It can be a struggle some days. Maybe the struggle comes when I think I am entitled to live each day the way I want, or spend my time in however I choose, or not have to do what I don’t truly want to do. Yes, at the root is selfishness and the reality that sacrifice is hard.
The world tells us that to sacrifice of ourselves makes us weak. But this week, I learned that sacrifice is indicative of strength. Great strength. For it takes strength to bend my will and give way to the needs or desires or ideas of another person.
This portion of Scripture tells me that Christ gave of Himself sacrificially. As I keep that in mind, I truly see that Christ sacrificed not because He was weak but because He knew that I was going to be weak and need a Savior. He knew that I was going to need help in this life if I was going to ever live in a way that pleased God.
The world has us convinced that sacrifice means a giving up of yourself in a way that means loss. Yet when I look at the words of Christ Himself, He tells me:
If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? (Matthew 16: 24-26, NLT)
Submission. A difficult concept for sure. Perhaps the difficulty stems from having to give up selfish ways. But in giving up we truly gain. We gain the love and sacrifices of a husband. We gain a marriage that displays to a dying world the love of the Savior.
As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united as one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. (Ephesians 5:31-32, NLT)
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