Keeping Christ at the Center – August 31, 2021

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. . . . Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.
Ephesians 5:22,25,26

Keeping Christ at the Center

It’s not hard to envision someone reading this passage and asking, “Can you imagine what it would be like if people actually lived like this?” Maybe you even asked it yourself.

Biblically speaking, “submitting” refers to honoring the leadership of someone God has placed over you in life. The Bible also shows that “loving like Christ loved the church” means sacrificing what you want and acting in another’s best interests.

Our society, however, prioritizes personal autonomy, which makes these hard commands to follow. Also, people naturally act out of sinful self-interest, so this looks like a recipe for misery. Won’t submission mean that your husband takes advantage of you? Won’t setting aside what you want in life for your wife make you constantly unhappy?

It helps to look at this through the eyes of a Christian and not through the eyes of the world. The child of God does not act out of self-centeredness but out of Christ-centeredness. Christians want to put others first because they do not live for themselves.

They live for the Savior who did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, who submitted himself to God’s law and lived a perfect life for selfish sinners. He sacrificed his time by performing countless miracles for people in need. He even sacrificed himself when he died to take away the sins of the world.

Marriage is such a supreme blessing from God that the devil, the world, and your sinful nature work overtime to attack it. Keeping Christ and his forgiveness at the center is crucial.

When sin threatens to break your marriage or smother your service to others, go to the Savior who sacrificed everything for you and pray for strength. Christ-like service comes hard for us, but it brings tremendous blessings. Can you imagine what it would be like if people actually lived like this? Live it and see for yourself.

Prayer:
Jesus, help me to keep you at the center of all I do. Amen.