Ephesians 5:24-25(NLT)
“As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.”
God’s favor follows whatever He blesses, and this is something we should celebrate every day of our lives. In Proverbs 18:22(NLT), God tells us, “The man who finds a wife finds a treasure, and he receives favor from the LORD.” Although society has a completely different view on marriage, there can be no doubt about the truth of this verse. God’s favor rests upon the sanctity of marriage. His desire is that a man finds a good wife and that this man is devoted to her in the same way that Jesus Christ is devoted to us, his body of believers.
Marriage is the relationship between a man and woman that God blesses, and He ordained it from the very beginning. Having a girlfriend isn’t the same thing as having a wife; there’s a huge distance between the two. Dating is a relatively modern concept, and there’s a reason there’s not much about it in God’s Word. The notion that we can experiment with the emotions of another human being, and possibly cause them to sin against God, is not okay with Him. Nothing in life gives us the right to come between another and their relationship with God. As men, we must pay close attention to this, because if we leave a trail of hurt and disappointment in the lives of women, it will cycle back to us, and do so in devastating ways.
This is something we don’t think about when we’re in the thick of things. We don’t consider the Law of Reciprocity, and that what we put out there cycles back around. And the truth is that it cycles back in greater strength and potency than our initial action. Jesus Christ put it best in Luke 6:38(NLT), “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” To give is to make an investment, and it doesn’t matter whether your initial investment is a good or bad one, it’s coming back to you! It will return not just in full, but it will boomerang with greater ferocity, in a fashion that has been packed down to make room for more. If it was a bad or wrong action, trouble will be poured into your lap and running over in your life. No one should want this.
Jesus Christ is compassionate, loving, respectful, tenderhearted, and kind. He has all power in his hands, and he only uses his power for the good of all. He is never about the “ME” and always about the “WE”, and this is the example he’s left for us. This conveys a mindfulness that is fully conscious of the spiritual walk in Christ of others. When we didn’t know any better, some of us made a sport of dating multiple women, but the times are too perilous to continue walking in ignorance about our actions. When we know the full implications of the choices we make, we should be extremely cautious about them. We must understand that we’re building our futures and creating a landing strip for blessings to land.
When you leave a trail of honor, honor has to come back to you. Marriage preserves this honor because it is God’s institution and that is the way He set it up. When a man has good sense, decency, an appreciation of family and relationships, and most importantly, he loves God through the Lord Jesus Christ, he has a very stable and solid foundation on which to build a wonderful life. The mindset that allows him to have this kind of honorable approach to others and his own life is pleasing to God. This kind of man is poised to find a good wife, and together they will greatly benefit the lives of their children. These are the unions upon which God’s favor rests, because they allow the legacy of His love, strength, and power to endure.
Just as we appreciate our mothers who poured into us, raised and loved us, we must have this same appreciation for all women. Even if they don’t recognize their own worth, we must not cause further injury to their esteem and value out of lust or simply for physical pleasure. Honoring God’s way keeps blessings flowing. His Will is that a man and woman enter into a binding partnership that causes them and their children to grow and thrive. His favor will rest on this, as they help each other attain valued goals, and seek to deepen their relationship with Him by following the example of Christ.
Arrogance and ego have prompted many of us to think we know best and that our approach to relationships with women works well. Proverbs 3:5-7(NLT) straightens this out for us quite nicely. It says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the LORD and turn away from evil.” Many of our current behaviors and attitudes towards women have been learned from bad sources. They have been very harmful to our lives. This has deprived us of the relationship with God that we should have and therefore, these wrong attitudes and behaviors towards women have set us back in many ways. Now is the time to change this. We must understand that we don’t belong to ourselves, we belong to God. He has a plan and purpose for our lives, and it is a good one. So, the very best approach to life is to value what God values. When we do this, His favor will be upon everything we seek to do.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Appreciating God’s Favor towards Marriage” written for Springfield Fellowship © 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.