For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her. Ephesians 5:25
If you are following along with these Daily Devotionals this week, then you know that yesterday we read about Christ's great love for us. He loved us so much that He sacrificed His very life on our behalf. There is nothing He would not do for you and me so that we could have a relationship with Him. Today, we are going to talk about how we are to live as a result of Christ's love for us. You see, Scripture teaches us that Christ's love demands a response. That response is showing that same, sacrificial love to other people, particularly to our spouses and those closest to us.
Ephesians 5:25 is a call for husbands to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the church. Every person reading this would be wise to love others around them in this way. To understand this call to love as Christ has loved the church, we spent time yesterday reflecting on Christ's sacrificial love for the church that He showed us to purchase the price owed for our sin. There is nothing that He would not do for you and me to have a restored relationship with God. It is this same love that the Apostle Paul calls husbands to love their wives with in Ephesians 5. It is this love that serves as a model for which we are to love our spouses and loved ones with. Yes, this involves sacrifice. It is painful. It has a cost. But the reward is so much greater. When we demonstrate this love, we model Jesus' love to the rest of the watching world.
1 John 4 gives us a picture of what genuine sacrificial love looks like. Is this Christlike, sacrificial love that we are talking about today prevalent in your relationships? Is it the kind of love that you are modeling for your spouse? Is it the love that you are showing to those closest to you? My friend, out of the love Christ has demonstrated for us, let's show our people that same sacrificial love today. Yes, it will be costly. Yes, it may even be painful. Yet, through this love, people will see a clear picture of the love that Christ has for them.
As we have discovered today, Christlike love requires sacrifice. You see, if we are not willing to make sacrifices for those we love, then we are valuing ourselves over our loved ones. Is there a sacrifice that you need to make on behalf of your spouse or loved one? What is it? Spend time in prayer, acknowledging to God the sacrifice He may be leading you to make, and then commit to making that sacrifice with His help. Then, tell someone else the sacrifice you have committed to make so that they can help hold you accountable.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.
