Week 02 · A holy heart makes a whole home
Christ at the Center
Read together: Ephesians 5:21-33
Also read: 1 John 1:7 · Romans 12:1-2
A marriage does not get better by two people trying harder. It gets better when two hearts are being cleansed and filled by God.
The heart of it
Read verse 21 before verse 22. Submitting yourselves one to another is the sentence the whole passage grows out of. Paul is not handing the husband a position of power. He is handing him a cross. Love her as Christ loved the church, and Christ loved the church by giving Himself up for it.
The picture in the middle of the passage is cleansing, washing, being made holy without spot. That is the heart of holiness as we understand it: not a list of rules kept by willpower, but God actually cleansing a heart and filling it with His Spirit so that love becomes possible. A husband cannot love this way on his own strength, and a wife cannot honor this way on hers.
So the first work of your marriage is not a better schedule or better communication. It is each of you asking God to do in you what only He can do. Two holy hearts under one roof will always make a home. Two clever strategies will not.
What to notice
- Nowhere is the husband told to make his wife submit. He is told to love, give himself, nourish, and cherish.
- The husband's love is measured against Christ's, not against other husbands.
- Verse 28 is startling: to love his wife is to love himself. What you do to her, you do to your own body.
- Paul calls it a great mystery. Marriage was made to show the world what Christ's love looks like.
Talk together
- 1Where do we actually go for help when things get hard: to God, to each other, to our phones, to silence?
- 2Husband: name one way you have used your position to get your way instead of laying yourself down. Wife: name one way you have quietly resisted rather than said the truth kindly.
- 3What does 'cherish' look like in practical, ordinary terms in our house on a Tuesday?
- 4Are we living out of God's grace or out of our own effort? How can you tell from the last two weeks?
- 5What is one habit we could add that would put Christ visibly at the center of our home?
Your own journal
Answer these on your own during the week. They are yours; you are never required to read them out loud.
1. Am I walking with God right now, honestly? Not what I say at church, what is true this week.
2. Where does my spouse experience my selfishness most often?
3. What would it cost me to love the way this passage describes? Am I willing?
4. Write a prayer asking God to cleanse a specific attitude in you.
5. What is one way I want my marriage to look more like Christ's love a year from now?
This week's practice
Pray out loud together every day this week, even if it is thirty seconds before you turn out the light.
"And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us."
Ephesians 5:2
Pray together
Ask God for a clean heart in each of you. Ask Him to make your home a place where His love is unmistakable.
Next week: Love That Acts