Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church

Romans 1:26-27

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. – Romans 1:26-27

Here we see the expression “gave them up to again”. This time it is regarding sexual sin. Previously it was in relation to idolatry. The two seem to go hand in hand. Idolatry and sexual sin. God has ordained marriage between a man and a woman and sadly Satan does all that he can to break up this institution which is the bedrock of human society. Our generation is being more highly exposed to the political agenda to accept so many different variations of relationships. For example adultery is accepted on the basis that our feelings for people change. But the love of God never changes.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. – Hebrews 13:8

God’s standards do not change with time. The bible started with a marriage, Adam and Eve, and ends with a marriage of the Lamb and His bride:

7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. – Revelation 19:7-8

Marriage is one of the ways God reveals how He loves His people:

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. – Ephesians 5:25-28

Marriage should be centred on a self sacrificial love that gives love unconditionally. Within that relationship each person wants to see their spouse sanctified before God, fulfilling their God given purpose and revealing the righteousness of Christ to the world.

Sadly the picture Paul paints here is of people who live by lust and passion, without God, ignoring their conscience, which ends with the consequences of sin, which ultimately is death. People are consumed with passion, totally destroyed by something that fills their mind and their time and uses up their energy for something that is not eternal.

God wants us to be holy as He is holy (Leviticus 11:44). An unattainable task in our own strength but through the power of the Holy Spirit we are being sanctified by the washing of the word of God, set apart for the masters use to glorify God in all that we do. As God imparts His righteousness to us through Christ so we are empowered to live in that righteousness and not in the lusts of our flesh.