The Interplay Between Submission And Love In Marriage
It is not everything we want in life that we really have a need for. We have imported so much wants into our marriages that the needs for marriage are relegated to second fiddle.
Marriage relationship needs are just two: SUBMISSION & LOVE. If it were more than two, God would have said so. But He said and commanded separately,
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:22, 25 KJV).
Upon these two needs, every marriage is ordained to survive and wax strong.
Submission and love in marriage are the covenant natural and spiritual habitat for every good and strong marriage.
When a wife submits to her husband in obedience as commanded by God, she is in fact simply expressing her natural marital tendency that is in her as a wife. If she doesn’t submit, she wouldn’t be her best as a wife.
In like manner, a husband is wired by God to love his wife. Loving his wife is what makes a man a ‘husband’.
A wife needs her husband’s love environment to express her submission. That is what she is built for in marriage; to be loved. She strives best in the affectionate love of her husband.
When a husband refused to love his wife, he is invariably depriving her from submission and denying himself the blessings of God in her.
I have said this in several meetings and I am saying it here again that submission is in two levels; first hierarchical because the husband is placed in authority over his wife. The other one is submission of virtues in service wherein her husband’s love environment draws out from her to attend to his needs. This is when a wife becomes A VIRTUOUS WOMAN (Prov. 31 :10-33)
In most marriages, the wife submission is hierarchical, being coarse or demanded by the husband. It is not love drawn / motivated.
A wife’s submission to her husband attracts and pulls love out of him to her. A husband will helplessly love his submissive wife. He can’t resist loving his wife.
The love tendencies in him as a husband naturally flows towards his wife unhindered. Love is protective and fights brutally against evil. It doesn’t compromise evil.
So a wife’s submission procures for her defense and security against every intruder physical and spiritual.
And we know that God will never command us to do anything which He has not equipped us for.
Therefore, when a husband refuses to love his wife, he has denied himself expression of husband-hood and he is starving the submission of his wife.
In the same vein, a wife is deliberately blocking herself from the influence of her husband’s love when she refuses to submit to him.
Submission and Love in marriage is the OXYGEN of THE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP. Without them functioning adequately, every marriage will suffocate.
Please note that, every husband has the capacity to love his wife and every wife has the endowment to submit to her own husband.
When you don’t see these expressed in your marriage, your marriage is being attacked and you need to put up a fight against the enemy.
I mean a strategic and targeted war launched against Satan and his marriage breaker spirits.
It is beyond your spouse. Not flesh and blood. Eph.6: 12.
These two great virtues that hold marriage in place are both enhanced through and by mutual communication between the couple in marriage.
Also note that you don’t depend on your spouse’s role played before you play your own role. You go ahead and obey the commandment of God.
In case your marriage is not experiencing second degree submission and first degree love, an enemy is behind it. And that enemy is right away bound and cast out of your marriage in the mighty name of Jesus!
Let every wife and husband receive Grace and be empowered today to obey the commandment of submission and Love with all their might and mind.
God bless you. Enjoy your marriage in PEACE.
By Keme Christopher,
A Servant Apostle of Jesus Christ to Marriages and Families.
