These 4 words can change your marriage

I don’t know what kind of shape your marriage is in as you read these words.

Maybe it’s great. Strong and vibrant. I hope so. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be even stronger. Then again, maybe your marriage looks strong and happy on the outside, when in reality it is hanging by a thread.

Or maybe you aren’t married at all but would like to be someday.

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What I want to say to you is that God can not only build a lasting marriage from the ground up, but He can restore marriages. So don’t give up! There is hope for hurting and damaged relationships. I’m reminded that HOPE is also an acronym for Holding On with Patient Expectation.

To boil it down, I’d like to identify four words that can change a marriage. (And it’s not: “Sorry honey, you’re right.” But those aren’t bad.)

Here they are from Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives.”

That’s right. He focuses on men in this passage — husbands — though He has plenty to say to wives, too. But here in Ephesians 5, in the space of just four verses, Paul tells husbands to love their wives four times.

And how are we to love our wives? “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” Seriously? Isn’t that kind of a tall order? Yes, it is. And it is certainly not something I can pull off in my own strength.

When God directs His words to a marriage, He starts with the man. And the kind of love God is calling for is the highest form of all. It is the Greek word “agape,” which essentially says, “I will love you regardless.”

It’s not saying, “I love you as long as you are attractive. When you cease to be attractive, I may not have much left.” Agape love says, “I love you no matter what you look like.”

It’s not saying, “I love you because of the good stuff you do for me or how you make me feel.” Agape says “I love you no matter how you behave or how you treat me. I will still show kindness to you. Even if I have ‘lost that loving feeling’ I used to have, I will still love you. I choose to love you, and God helping me, I will.”

Of course, this is not the way our culture works. The world’s love is object-oriented. A person is loved because they are attractive, have an appealing personality, or unique talent. When you think about it, People magazine does not have a special issue every year featuring “the world’s most unattractive people.” That would really be depressing to be called and asked to be on the cover of that.

No, it is only the sexiest, most attractive, most talented, most appealing people that our culture celebrates.

But God loves unlovable people. God loves unattractive people.

And God calls us to love like He does.

In his excellent book, Love Life for Every Married Couple, Dr. Ed Wheat writes: “Agape love has the capacity to persist in the face of rejection and continue where there is no human response at all. It can leap over walls that would stop any human love cold. It is never deflected by unlovable behavior and gives gladly to the undeserving without totaling the cost … Agape imparts stability and a permanence that is rooted in the eternal.”

I love that. We have marriages populated by imperfect human beings — including me and thee. We all struggle. We all fall short.

If you were to boil down the problems in most marriages, I would identify it as one word. Selfishness. And if you want to know the solution to most marriages that are having problems, I would put another word in its place. Selflessness.

That is what we are talking about here. Substituting selflessness for selfishness.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 4:3, NIV).

The word “consider” in the above verse doesn’t mean to pretend that others are more important than you. It means to actually believe others are more important. We don’t generally think that way, do we? We think we are the moral center of the universe. We have it all wired and figured out. We think we are all that and a bag of chips.

Then we marry someone who has a different opinion than we have. They want to do it a different way than we want to do it. So, what happens? The Bible says to think of them as better than yourself.

Put your mate above yourself in marriage. Yes, of course it is difficult. That is why you need to lean on the strength and wisdom of the Holy Spirit within you.

Why is that so difficult for us? Because, unfortunately, we are prewired to be selfish. It goes back to childhood. One of the first words a child learns is “Mine!” They want that toy. They want their own way. That is how we are. Don’t let that dominate your marriage.

Think of immorality and all of the ways that it shows itself. Premarital sex. Extramarital sex. Adultery. Making decisions without consulting your partner. Marriages falling apart. It’s all selfishness. We want what we want when we want it.

The late Cliff Barrows, the man who led worship at Billy Graham crusades for many years, was asked in an interview about the secret to a long and happy marriage. He said, “I think there are nine words we should be willing to say every day. ‘I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you.’”

Then he adds an additional four words that are often helpful, too. “It was my fault.”

What a great way to diffuse a conflict. And it doesn’t take that long.

Love your mate. Honor them. Live selflessly, not selfishly. And who is the greatest example of loving as we ought to love?

Well, it isn’t Greg Laurie. And I’m guessing it isn’t you. It’s Jesus, of course.

Going on in Philippians 2 we read: “Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal’s death on a cross” (verses 5-8, TLB).

Jesus was God among us. He was not man becoming a God. That is impossible. He was God becoming man. He never voided his deity, He veiled it. But He was still God — which is so amazing when you look at how He served and helped others and always had time for them. Even in the Upper Room before His betrayal and death, He got down on his knees and washed the disciples’ dirty feet. That is normally what a servant would do.

By the way, He also washed Judas’ feet — right before Judas betrayed Him.

If I were Jesus, I would not have washed Judas’ feet. I would have broken his feet. Then I would have said, “Try betraying me now. See how that works out.” But He washed his feet. Then He made the ultimate sacrifice by going to the cross and dying there for our sins.

It was the greatest example of love in the universe.

So, husbands are to love their wives like that?

Yes. And that’s just one more reason why we so desperately need more and more of God’s presence and power in our daily lives.