The Cost He Had in Mind

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it; (Ephesians 5:25, WEB)

Paul sets a standard that should stop a man in his tracks. He writes, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." The measure he holds up is a laying down of self, the willingness to give up what you want for the sake of the one you married. It is a costly kind of love, priced in exactly the currency a man is least eager to spend, which is his own comfort and his own appetite. Pornography runs in the opposite direction. It takes without giving, feeding a private appetite while your wife sleeps in the next room unaware of where your mind has gone.

When you begin to see her the way Christ sees the church, as someone worth your sacrifice, the secret indulgence starts to look like the theft it is. You are spending on strangers what you promised to her, and the account it drains is the marriage itself. This does not mean you love her by gritting your teeth and white-knuckling your way through the night. Christ gave himself up out of a love that was already there, and he is willing to grow that same love in you when your own runs thin.

Ask him to. Tell him you want to love your wife with something more than leftover energy, and be honest that on your own you do not have it in you. He knows that already, and he is not put off by it. The man who gives himself up for his wife is not born that way; he is made that way slowly, by the God who did it first. Let him begin the slow work of turning a taker into a man who gives, and trust that he finishes what he starts.