CHAPTER 2
LOVING & RESPECTING OUR HUSBANDS
Ephesians 5:33 says, “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.”
Love is not a feeling but an ACTION. Feelings can accompany actions but not always. We
would do well to go over I Cor 13 and pray that God would open us up to this kind of love for our
husbands.
Each quality mentioned in I Cor 13 is selfless and costs the flesh. Love is not merely words.
Compliments and words are cheap. They cost nothing.
God says in John 15, “those who love Me obey me.” The real proof of love is when it costs us
something and requires us to be selfless. To do some-thing that we don’t want to do, but we do it
anyway. Take our kids for example. When a baby cries early in the morning and we want to
sleep some more, but we get up and take care of the baby. When we get up with our kids who
get sick in the middle of the night. When it is raining and we have to take them to school instead
of having them ride the bus. All of these are examples of selfless giving on our part to our loved
ones.
So it is with our husbands. The Bible says, “love seeks not her own.” We are not out for
ourselves but for those that we love. We are to live for his joy and his happiness. We show an
interest in their interests. We will cook or warm up a mean after mealtime is over and it’s late, but
they had to come home late that night for some reason, tired and hungry. We will stay up late
with them to lend moral support, when they are doing something difficult and need our support.
For example, typing our husband’s papers for his schooling and etc. Or on Christmas Eve when
he is trying to follow the hard to understand directions to put bicycles together for the next
morning for the kids, and your there supporting him in doing so, instead of going to bed. Or when
he’s fixing the car and having a hard time, you take him some coffee and a little treat out there to
the garage just to show him that you love him and care. All of these are the valuable things in
life, the hidden, behind the scene kind of actions that we wives and mothers do for our families
that no one sees, but God and the recipient of our love. But in God’s eyes, these are the REAL
things that matter to Him, and won’t be burned up as hay and stubble on judgment day.
Say to yourself, how can I make LIFE EASIER for him? How can I be more SENSITIVE to HIS
needs (not my own)? Love does everything we do as unto the Lord. Love is tender and
reassuring when they gets down or depressed. Love forgives when we are wronged or hurt by
them. Why, because love is unconditional. Love keeps confidences and they can trust us with
their feelings, ideas or fears without feeling like we are going to go out and tell our best girlfriend
(or anyone else) what they told us.
Love never belittles or puts them down or makes them look foolish. Haven’t your seen women
who think it is their job in life to correct every little thing their husband says and that she thinks is
wrong, in front of others. It makes him look like a fool and her even worse. Love doesn’t laugh at
them or make them a brunt of a joke. Today the TV makes all men look like idiots. And they
raise up the woman to an elevated height. She looks wiser, smarter, more spiritual, more
sensitive, more intuitive, and even stronger inside than a man. This is simply not so, but today’s
society is out to de-masculate the identity of the male, and the role of a husband and a father.
This truly must grieve the heart of God. And we Christian women must be very careful that we
don’t buy into this way of thinking as well, and begin to act like the women of this world. We want
to honor them. Love isn’t indifferent, yawns, looks bored and out the window, and half way
listens to what he is saying. I know, I have to really try to focus when my husband is talking to me
or my mind will wander off to some other thought and I will only half way hear him. I must not
show him this disrespect.
Love prays for the one you love. For example, “God, bless that man and cause him to grow and
to become all that You have created him to be. To fulfill all Your plans that You created him for
and protect him from the enemy and give him wisdom in every situation.”
Loving our husbands is our first ministry after God. The real way we show we love them is by
showing them honor and respect when we don’t want to or feel like it. It is easy when they are
taking us out to dinner. But when they bring up something that we don’t like or agree with or
want to do, or they want us to do, we need to hear them out. We must hear them out with
respect without looks of disapproval or dissatisfaction or sighs or outright bursts of anger; not
criticizing or ridiculing to try to get our way instead. We women can play so many games, it
seems like game playing is naturally a part of our fallen nature as women, but we must not fall
prey to the old man, but live in the divine new nature that God has also put within us in order to
overcome the old man. We try crying, pouting, tirades, put downs and anything else we can think
of to get our own way. Instead we should listen quietly and collectively and calmly. Then if
asked our opinion, respectfully give it, knowing that he has the final say.
Respect is honoring him. We are to treat him as someone special and worthy. For example don’t
you respect and honor your pastor or your boss? How do you treat them? Do you talk to them in
the same way that you talk to your husband? God wants us to respect our husbands the same
way. After all, he (our husbands) are the lords of our home and God gave them this rightful
position. We are to treat them with that kind of respect in our ATTITUDE and MANNERISMS and
ACTIONS. I have had a hard time with this in the past. I am a strong willed person at times and
have found myself saying to myself, “well, I may be standing up on the outside, but I am sitting
down on the inside.” This is REBELLION! “Ok! I’ll do it!” But I’ll let him know that I don’t like it!
“He’s mean and I think he’s wrong.” “It’s really a lot he’s putting me through.” All these thought
are not godly and are rebellious.
God wants our ATTITUDES to be SUBMITTED to our husbands. We are to be honoring and
respectful towards them. In Ephesians 5 this is exactly what God TELLS wives we are to do.
Respect sees that there can only be one general over a company of men, one boss over an
employee and one head of the family unit. That head is our husband (like it or not) and we are
under his authority. We are to go along respectfully with his plans, honoring his decisions as the
“decision maker” because he is the head of the household. He may ask our advice and opinions,
but the final decision has to rest with him and so does the responsibility if it doesn’t turn out.
In an army the general gives the orders and men follow down to the letter without complaint.
Sometimes he may make mistakes, and some mistakes may even cost men’s lives! So can’t we
as Christian women do as much knowing that God will protect us as we obey His Word and
submit to our husband’s authority with love, respect and showing the right attitudes. God will
surely honor you for this.
Remember Sarah in the Bible. Abraham failed her on two occasions and put her in terrible
jeopardy trying to preserve his own skin, by saying that she was his sister instead of his wife.
For if he said that she was his wife, the king would have had Abraham killed, so that the king
could have Sarah for himself. So Sarah trusted in God and God delivered her in both occasions
from being violated, and God will protect you from any mistakes your husband may make if WE
have the right heart and attitudes. God sees everything situation and knows every thought that
we have. He comes to rescue us, protect us,, deliver us and love us. Oh what a wonderful
personal God we have. We should love Him more than anything or anyone in all the world, He’s
so wonderful!
You may be thinking in your heart, “My husband doesn’t deserve this kind of respect. He isn’t
even saved yet.” I Peter 3:1 tells wives to submit to their husbands so that the husband can be
won by the respectful and pure behavior of the wife. There is no getting around it. Saved or
unsaved. It makes no differenced. God gave the same order to us for our husbands.
There is freedom with right attitudes. Freedom from guilt and our prayers will have no blockage
between us and God because of our behavior. We will KNOW that God is pleased with us and
He WILL bless us in one way or another for these right attitudes.
Our flesh will die when we have to submit, obey, honor, respect and see him as the lord or head
of the wife, but each time we die we become more filled with the Holy Spirit of God and become
transformed to become more like Jesus. Then more of Him can be seen in us. So let’s let the
beauty of Jesus be seen in us to a world that is so desperate to see a godly woman of God. A-
men?
LOVING & RESPECTING OUR HUSBANDS
Ephesians 5:33 says, “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.”
Love is not a feeling but an ACTION. Feelings can accompany actions but not always. We
would do well to go over I Cor 13 and pray that God would open us up to this kind of love for our
husbands.
Each quality mentioned in I Cor 13 is selfless and costs the flesh. Love is not merely words.
Compliments and words are cheap. They cost nothing.
God says in John 15, “those who love Me obey me.” The real proof of love is when it costs us
something and requires us to be selfless. To do some-thing that we don’t want to do, but we do it
anyway. Take our kids for example. When a baby cries early in the morning and we want to
sleep some more, but we get up and take care of the baby. When we get up with our kids who
get sick in the middle of the night. When it is raining and we have to take them to school instead
of having them ride the bus. All of these are examples of selfless giving on our part to our loved
ones.
So it is with our husbands. The Bible says, “love seeks not her own.” We are not out for
ourselves but for those that we love. We are to live for his joy and his happiness. We show an
interest in their interests. We will cook or warm up a mean after mealtime is over and it’s late, but
they had to come home late that night for some reason, tired and hungry. We will stay up late
with them to lend moral support, when they are doing something difficult and need our support.
For example, typing our husband’s papers for his schooling and etc. Or on Christmas Eve when
he is trying to follow the hard to understand directions to put bicycles together for the next
morning for the kids, and your there supporting him in doing so, instead of going to bed. Or when
he’s fixing the car and having a hard time, you take him some coffee and a little treat out there to
the garage just to show him that you love him and care. All of these are the valuable things in
life, the hidden, behind the scene kind of actions that we wives and mothers do for our families
that no one sees, but God and the recipient of our love. But in God’s eyes, these are the REAL
things that matter to Him, and won’t be burned up as hay and stubble on judgment day.
Say to yourself, how can I make LIFE EASIER for him? How can I be more SENSITIVE to HIS
needs (not my own)? Love does everything we do as unto the Lord. Love is tender and
reassuring when they gets down or depressed. Love forgives when we are wronged or hurt by
them. Why, because love is unconditional. Love keeps confidences and they can trust us with
their feelings, ideas or fears without feeling like we are going to go out and tell our best girlfriend
(or anyone else) what they told us.
Love never belittles or puts them down or makes them look foolish. Haven’t your seen women
who think it is their job in life to correct every little thing their husband says and that she thinks is
wrong, in front of others. It makes him look like a fool and her even worse. Love doesn’t laugh at
them or make them a brunt of a joke. Today the TV makes all men look like idiots. And they
raise up the woman to an elevated height. She looks wiser, smarter, more spiritual, more
sensitive, more intuitive, and even stronger inside than a man. This is simply not so, but today’s
society is out to de-masculate the identity of the male, and the role of a husband and a father.
This truly must grieve the heart of God. And we Christian women must be very careful that we
don’t buy into this way of thinking as well, and begin to act like the women of this world. We want
to honor them. Love isn’t indifferent, yawns, looks bored and out the window, and half way
listens to what he is saying. I know, I have to really try to focus when my husband is talking to me
or my mind will wander off to some other thought and I will only half way hear him. I must not
show him this disrespect.
Love prays for the one you love. For example, “God, bless that man and cause him to grow and
to become all that You have created him to be. To fulfill all Your plans that You created him for
and protect him from the enemy and give him wisdom in every situation.”
Loving our husbands is our first ministry after God. The real way we show we love them is by
showing them honor and respect when we don’t want to or feel like it. It is easy when they are
taking us out to dinner. But when they bring up something that we don’t like or agree with or
want to do, or they want us to do, we need to hear them out. We must hear them out with
respect without looks of disapproval or dissatisfaction or sighs or outright bursts of anger; not
criticizing or ridiculing to try to get our way instead. We women can play so many games, it
seems like game playing is naturally a part of our fallen nature as women, but we must not fall
prey to the old man, but live in the divine new nature that God has also put within us in order to
overcome the old man. We try crying, pouting, tirades, put downs and anything else we can think
of to get our own way. Instead we should listen quietly and collectively and calmly. Then if
asked our opinion, respectfully give it, knowing that he has the final say.
Respect is honoring him. We are to treat him as someone special and worthy. For example don’t
you respect and honor your pastor or your boss? How do you treat them? Do you talk to them in
the same way that you talk to your husband? God wants us to respect our husbands the same
way. After all, he (our husbands) are the lords of our home and God gave them this rightful
position. We are to treat them with that kind of respect in our ATTITUDE and MANNERISMS and
ACTIONS. I have had a hard time with this in the past. I am a strong willed person at times and
have found myself saying to myself, “well, I may be standing up on the outside, but I am sitting
down on the inside.” This is REBELLION! “Ok! I’ll do it!” But I’ll let him know that I don’t like it!
“He’s mean and I think he’s wrong.” “It’s really a lot he’s putting me through.” All these thought
are not godly and are rebellious.
God wants our ATTITUDES to be SUBMITTED to our husbands. We are to be honoring and
respectful towards them. In Ephesians 5 this is exactly what God TELLS wives we are to do.
Respect sees that there can only be one general over a company of men, one boss over an
employee and one head of the family unit. That head is our husband (like it or not) and we are
under his authority. We are to go along respectfully with his plans, honoring his decisions as the
“decision maker” because he is the head of the household. He may ask our advice and opinions,
but the final decision has to rest with him and so does the responsibility if it doesn’t turn out.
In an army the general gives the orders and men follow down to the letter without complaint.
Sometimes he may make mistakes, and some mistakes may even cost men’s lives! So can’t we
as Christian women do as much knowing that God will protect us as we obey His Word and
submit to our husband’s authority with love, respect and showing the right attitudes. God will
surely honor you for this.
Remember Sarah in the Bible. Abraham failed her on two occasions and put her in terrible
jeopardy trying to preserve his own skin, by saying that she was his sister instead of his wife.
For if he said that she was his wife, the king would have had Abraham killed, so that the king
could have Sarah for himself. So Sarah trusted in God and God delivered her in both occasions
from being violated, and God will protect you from any mistakes your husband may make if WE
have the right heart and attitudes. God sees everything situation and knows every thought that
we have. He comes to rescue us, protect us,, deliver us and love us. Oh what a wonderful
personal God we have. We should love Him more than anything or anyone in all the world, He’s
so wonderful!
You may be thinking in your heart, “My husband doesn’t deserve this kind of respect. He isn’t
even saved yet.” I Peter 3:1 tells wives to submit to their husbands so that the husband can be
won by the respectful and pure behavior of the wife. There is no getting around it. Saved or
unsaved. It makes no differenced. God gave the same order to us for our husbands.
There is freedom with right attitudes. Freedom from guilt and our prayers will have no blockage
between us and God because of our behavior. We will KNOW that God is pleased with us and
He WILL bless us in one way or another for these right attitudes.
Our flesh will die when we have to submit, obey, honor, respect and see him as the lord or head
of the wife, but each time we die we become more filled with the Holy Spirit of God and become
transformed to become more like Jesus. Then more of Him can be seen in us. So let’s let the
beauty of Jesus be seen in us to a world that is so desperate to see a godly woman of God. A-
men?
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