October 2, 2020 8:00 pm
It wasn’t quite dawn when my husband rose from bed and went into the kitchen. I saw the light flip on and off and wondered at his action. Then I recalled that the previous morning I’d yelped at the sight of an “intruder” on our kitchen counter. Translated: an undesirable creature of the six-legged variety. My husband knew my paranoia and immediately arrived to remove it. This morning he’d risen early to ensure our kitchen was bug-free so I could enter without concern. What a guy!
My husband awoke with me on his mind, putting my need before his own. To me, his action illustrates the love Paul describes in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Paul goes on, “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (v. 28). Paul’s comparison of a husband’s love to the love of Christ pivots on how Jesus put our needs before His own. My husband is not afraid of such intruders. But he knows I am. And so he made my concern his own.
That principle doesn’t apply to husbands only. After the example of Jesus, each of us can lovingly sacrifice to help remove an intruder of stress, fear, shame, or anxiety so that someone can move more freely in the world.
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Thanks for joining us for another daily encouragement from the Our Daily Bread devotional. Today's reading titled Removing the Intruder was written by Elisa Morgan.
Translated, An Undesirable Creature of the Six-Legged Variety. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Paul goes on, Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Paul's comparison of a husband's love to the love of Christ pivots on how Jesus put our needs before his own.
My husband knows I'm afraid of certain intruders and so he made my concern his priority. That principle doesn't apply to husbands only. After the example of Jesus, each of us can lovingly sacrifice to help remove an intruder of stress, fear, shame or anxiety so that someone can move more freely in the world.
Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 5 verses 25 through 33. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband. Let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you for the gift of your Son who has removed the intruder of sin from our lives and has reconciled us to you. We thank you for your incredible love and willingness to lay down your life for all of mankind so that our eyes would be opened and that we could once again be in relationship with you. We love you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread ministries.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-24 21:58:23 / 2024-02-24 21:59:43 / 1
