Text: Deuteronomy 20; Ephesians 5

Paul gives some appropriate affection between husband and wife, if practiced well, keeps peace in a marriage. “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband”(Ephesians 5:33 ESV). The “However” in the passages brings the Ephesians’ reader back from a sidebar of the mysterious relationship between Christ and the church, and the collective body’s response to her Husband, to the practical understanding within their marriage. Vincent sheds more light for husbands on the phrase “even as himself”, “Not as much as he loves himself, but as being his very self.”

Albert Barnes concludes:

“The great secret of conjugal happiness is in the cultivation of a proper temper. It is not so much in the great and trying scenes of life that the strength of virtue is tested; it is in the events that are constantly occurring; the manifestation of kindness in the things that are happening every moment; the gentleness that flows along every day, like the stream that winds through the meadow and around the farm-house, noiseless but useful, diffusing fertility by day and by night. Great deeds rarely occur. The happiness of life depends little on them, but mainly on the little acts of kindness in life.”

You, as a born again believer, are espoused to Christ—think of how He loves you; think of how you respect and reverence Him. Pray an affectionate prayer to your Bridegroom and, for those who are married, then pray an affectionate prayer for your spouse. Now, pray peace into the marriages of those in chaos.