"Husbands, Love Your Wives!" (Colossians 3:19)

Our passage says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them" (Colossians 3:19). In this passage, Paul understands that either a husband and wife are maturing closer in a deepening love for one another, or they're growing more distant as resentment (embitter) and anger build a separation between the two of them. In this passage, Paul is showing how Christian husbands are to live out their faith toward their wives. Let's notice that Paul issues two sides to his command: We're given the positive ("love") and the negative ("do not be embittered"). Husbands, no matter how mature we are as Christ followers, there's always room to grow, mature, and develop in obedience to Paul's command! And all the wives said, "Amen!" Let's examine how we're to apply this command to our marriages so that they will not grow embittered, but better! The context of our passage has Paul commanding the wives with these words, "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord" (v. 18). Based on Paul's command to wives to submit to their husbands, many husbands when asked about their primary responsibility toward their wives, would respond, "To be the head of the home!" However, Paul says that our primary responsibility to our wives is to love them! Though the husband's role in giving leadership is established with the command of verse 18, the emphasis shifts to the supreme responsibility of husbands in regard to their wives, which is to love them with the same unreserved, selfless, and sacrificial love that Christ has for His church (Ephesians 5:25). That is the standard of sacrifice for the husband's love of his wife! That's the love which is expressed in Paul's command of Colossians 3:19! In order to apply Colossians 3:19 properly, we need to understand and embrace what apostle Paul meant by love. If this love is a strong feeling over which we have no control and the feelings are gone away, then there's not much that can be done, is there? I've had couples say to me, "We're no longer in love, so the best thing is a divorce!" But the main ingredient in biblical love is not feelings, but commitment! The love of which Paul speaks is not primarily based on feelings, but is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved! Husbands, you can't command a feeling, but you can command a commitment to behave in certain ways! Praise God forevermore! Paul's command is not saying that love is the basis for marriage, but rather that the marriage is the basis for love! He's telling the husbands, "Love the wife you're married to!" The good news is that even though the feelings of love may have taken a drastic hit, they CAN BE REKINDLED! Husbands, we're to learn what biblical love is and do it! The feelings will follow! There's hope! Your move. Be encouraged!