God created us so that we sacrifice whenever we deal with anyone else. If we share an apartment, we have to give up some of our wants so the other person can share the space. When we drive cars, we have to give up some of the road or we’ll hit other cars.
We must sacrifice by giving up not only our former sins when we accept salvation; we totally give up control of our lives to God as we are tempered together with Him (1 Cor. 12:24, Eph. 5:30). We must align our ambitions and drives with what He wants.
Saul pursued Christians to the death because he believed extremely fervently in keeping Judaism pure. When Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus, Jesus didn’t change the strength of his convictions, Jesus changed his name to Paul and redirected his enthusiasm and drive toward a totally different goal. Salvation changes us utterly which is why the Bible speaks of “all things are become new.”
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. II Corinthians 5:17
Salvation sacrifices our independent lives and independent spirit. We must align our ambitions with what God wants and with what our family needs. We give up significant control over our lives in marriage just as we gave up control to God.
We each work out our own salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12) as we are tempered together with Christ (1 Cor. 12:24, Eph. 5:30) and with each other. We work out our marriages as we and our children are tempered together with each other and with Christ. The best things in life require sacrifice which means dying to self and taking up His cross to follow Him.
Neither salvation nor marriage will work as God ordained unless we die. Jesus spoke of being born again, Romans 7 4 speaks of dying to our former lives in order to be “married” to Christ. Jesus said that husband and wife were “no more twain, but one (Mt. 19:6, Mk. 10:8).” In order to become one as Jesus commanded, each party must die to their former lives in favor of the marriage.
We were all born as lost sinners who deserve the punishments of Hell. We can’t earn our way out of Hell, we can’t work our way to Heaven to spend eternity with God. Salvation is an undeserved gift from God that we either accept or refuse. Salvation is pretty simple:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:9-10
I confessed my sins, believed with all my heart that God had raised Jesus from the dead, and asked Jesus to clean me of my sins through His blood. I am saved, but God expected that repenting from my sins meant that I wouldn’t do them anymore. Salvation required that I give up the pleasures of sin, however, and several of my friends decided not to accept Christ because they didn’t want to give up their favorite sins.
We all know people who married without planning to give up their individual desires in favor of their new family. Marrying to get instead of marrying to give causes much sorrow.
God Expects Sacrifice to Serve Salvation
Salvation is free, there is no price we can pay which will free us from Hell and take us to Heaven, but God expects saved people to sacrifice themselves by working to serve Him. Sacrifices don't take us to Heaven; the thief on the cross made none. After he confessed that Jesus was the Son of God and asked Jesus to save him, Jesus saved him:
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43
When Christians ask for salvation, we die to our former sinful lives and are born again. We then belong to God and have to live by His rules. Some people have sins they don’t want to give up or plans they don’t want to change, that is part of the sacrifice of accepting salvation and becoming a bondservant and slave to Christ:
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. I Corinthians 6:19-20
Jesus said that married people are “no more twain, but one flesh (Mt. 19:6, Mk. 10:8).” Marrying means that you give up your independent life and belong to God, your spouse, and your children. That’s part of the sacrifice of marriage.
Sacrificing Labor to serve Salvation
God expects Christians to pay tithes, that is, give God 1/10 of our income. That’s a sacrifice.
We work to get money. “By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Gen. 3:19). Suppose you earn $10 per hour after taxes. When you spend $10, you’ve spent one hour of your life. You should think of every penny you spend in terms of the cost in hours of your life.
If a wife spends $10, she’s spent one hour of her husband’s life. God expects you to sacrifice 1/10 of your working life to support His work. Tithing goes back to Abraham (Gen 14:20). God not only tells you to sacrifice, God tells you how to sacrifice. We should give money to God cheerfully out of love for Him and out of gratitude to Him for saving us, keeping us, preserving us, guiding us, and so much more.
Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7
Sacrifice of Self to serve Salvation
It’s hard to sacrifice money to God with the right attitude unless we first belong to God:
And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God. II Corinthians 8:5
Giving ourselves to the Lord is the sacrifice that comes after salvation. Having saved you, God expects you to give yourself to Him as He gave Jesus’ life to save you. In telling the Corinthians they should give money to support God’s work, Paul told them of another church whose members gave themselves, not just money. After you ask Jesus to save you, God expects you to sacrifice by giving your life in serving Him:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
The moment you’re saved, God does a work in you. He then expects you to do the work He wants you to do. Do these good works take you to Heaven? No, salvation is a free gift that takes you to Heaven even if you do nothing more. The thief on the cross died before he could even be baptized, but we’ll meet him in Heaven.
What if you don’t Sacrifice to serve Salvation?
You don’t have to pay anything to go to Heaven, but if you don’t sacrifice yourself to serve Jesus after salvation, if you refuse to belong to the God who saved you, you’ll lose the blessings of salvation in this life and may not make it into Heaven.
In addition to salvation which takes you to Heaven for the next life, God offers marriage which can give a taste of the joys of Heaven in this life. You don’t get the joy of salvation in this life unless you belong to God; you don’t get the joys of marriage unless you belong to your spouse. It’s very hard to belong to your husband or wife unless you belong to God first.
How do you Sacrifice to serve Salvation?
It’s not always obvious how God expects us to serve Him, but God gave many promises about prayer:
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: I John 5:14
It's God's will that we serve Him. The Bible promises that if we ask what God wants, He will hear. If you want to serve God, which is His will, just ask Him to lead you and teach you and He will. Reading the Bible helps, of course, as does talking to pastors and fellow Christians. Similarly, you can learn to belong to your spouse through prayer, reading the Bible, and talking with fellow Christians, especially your spouse.
Rewards of Sacrifice to serve Salvation
But godliness with contentment is great gain. I Timothy 6:6
Godliness comes from getting with God’s program; getting with God’s program makes you content.
God Expects Sacrifice to serve Marriage
Marriage is like salvation in that they are both blood-bound covenants of God. Jesus offers us salvation through the new covenant that is sealed with His blood (Heb 10:29, 12:24, 13:12, and 13:20). The blood of the lamb seals salvation covenants. Malachi 2:14 says that marriage is a covenant. The blood of the bride seals the marriage covenant.[1] This blood is so important that under Jewish law, a woman could be put to death if she could not show the blood she had shed when her husband took her to wife:
But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you. Deuteronomy 22:20-21
Shedding her blood outside marriage despised God’s blood-bound marriage covenant and was worthy of death. Despising Jesus’ blood by rejecting His offer of salvation condemns your soul to death in Hell.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? Hebrews 10:28-29
Marriage is like salvation in that both are gifts of God. Nobody deserves the joy of salvation; nobody deserves the joy of marriage. Adam did nothing to earn Eve; she was an undeserved gift of God. A man doesn’t deserve his wife’s sacrificing her independence in submission to him or reverence to him; those are gifts of God and from her.
A woman doesn’t deserve her husband sacrificing his life in nourishing, cherishing, or serving her; those are gifts of God and from him. You can’t earn salvation; you get it as a gift from God or not at all. You can’t earn or command joyful marriage; you get it as a gift from God and from your spouse or not at all.
If you try to earn marriage, if you base obeying God’s commands about marriage on whether your spouse “deserves” your sacrifice, we call it whoredom. Works-based salvation takes you to Hell; works-based marriage can create your very own Hell right here on earth.
Sacrificing Labor to serve Marriage
Most people understand the labor sacrifices that go into a successful marriage. The Bible teaches that women should be keepers at home (Titus 2:5) and guide the house (I Ti. 5:14). Even in non-Christian homes where the wife works, the wife still does most of the housework.
Men are supposed to pay the bills, a man who doesn't is no better than a lost person (I Ti. 5:8). Many modern young men have convinced a lot of women that it’s more “liberated” for the girl to pay “her share” of rent, food, and other costs. The Bible teaches that Isaac supplied the tent and that Boaz was a man of wealth. If a man’s offer to a woman doesn’t include room and board, it’s not Biblical (Ex. 21:10).
If a woman pays her own way and he gets her for nothing, she’s not worth much to him. If she pays her own way instead of being a keeper at home, she’s free to be independent instead of leaning on her husband and depending on him as God expects. If your wife pays her own way, why should she give herself to you? Why not just belong to herself or to her children?
A man earns money by the sweat of his face (Ge. 3:19), that’s how he pays the labor part of the sacrifice of marriage. This costs all the money that most men can earn; guiding a house costs so much that there’s seldom very much left over.
Sacrifice of Self to serve Marriage
After salvation, we no longer belong to ourselves, we belong to God, whether we accept this or not:
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? I Corinthians 6:19
And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
The only way two people can become one instead of remaining two is to die to themselves and belong to each other. This is the surrender part of the sacrifice that comes after marriage – you are no longer your own, you belong to your spouse and you give yourself to serving God by serving your spouse and family. That’s what God expects of you when you enter into Holy Matrimony.
What if you don’t Sacrifice to serve Marriage?
The Bible teaches that older women should teach younger women how to love their husbands; women have to be taught how to belong to men. It took 20 years to find the words, but my wife can explain how to belong to a husband in a few minutes. One woman said, “Of course. If I’d done that, none of my husbands would’ve left me.” 3 husbands had left her, and she now knew why. She wanted to be married but she didn’t want to sacrifice herself to stay married. She wanted to belong to herself instead of belonging to her husband.
Men should also sacrifice themselves for marriage but I don’t see sacrifice in many books. Some books tell husbands to pursue their wives, but there are problems with pursuing your wife. Women like being pursued because it gives them attention, but men can’t pursue without catching. Being caught as often as you’d like can crush her. The Bible says that a husband humbles a woman. That sounds like something you do to her, but the Hebrew shows that she chooses to humble herself.
Jesus was in the form of God. It would not be robbery for Him to be equal to God, but He chose to humble Himself and serve us (Philippians 2:5-8). Your wife is made in the image of God. It would not be robbery for her to be equal with you, but God expects her to choose to humble herself and belong to you. If you don’t sanctify her when you take her as God tells you to, you humiliate her. A woman can humble herself to belong to you and she can like belonging to you, but it’s hard for her to like being humiliated.
We once attended a church where the pastor and his wife were not in harmony. We wanted them to have the joy we had and we prayed that God would help them find it. I suggested to him that he pursue his wife.
His eyes lit up, he said, “That’s a good idea,” and he did it. It was wonderful. He was a lot happier. While she was able to receive his pursuit, he got along a lot better with his flock. He’d been an autocratic, dictatorial leader, now he was one of the guys. He discussed things instead of commanding and the church ran better. But after about a week, it all fell apart and we had no idea why. His body language showed that they weren’t together anymore; he was miserable.
We didn’t yet know that the power in marriage, the strength in the relationship, comes from the man. We knew that the wife is the weaker vessel, but we didn’t know what that meant. We didn’t realize that when he pursued her without honoring her, she couldn’t give herself to him as often as he wanted because he humbled her (Deu. 21:14, 22:29, Eze. 22:10-11) instead of honoring her and sanctifying her (I Thess. 4:4-5). Being chased, caught, and humbled by a man who wasn’t hers in his heart was demeaning and humiliating so she put him off as any woman can. Was she right in not being his?
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
She was made for him, God intended that she belong to him, was she right in not being his?
What about him? A wife is a gift from God, does God say how a man should use the gift?
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. I Corinthians 7:3-5
This is a crucial verse. Men have temptations, women have temptations, that’s what “incontinency” means. You should help your wife deal with her temptations as she helps you. What are a woman’s temptations?
And withal they [younger widows] learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. I Timothy 5:13-14
This passage teaches that having children and guiding a house makes a woman too busy for gossip, but it also shows that women are tempted to talk improperly. Marrying not only gives a woman a house to guide and children to nourish, it gives her a husband to talk to. If a husband meets his wife’s need for talk, it’s easier for her to follow God’s commands about how to talk with others.
Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. Colossians 4:6
If a man doesn’t want his wife’s talk, she’s tempted to offer the thoughts of her heart to someone else as he’s tempted to scatter his seed if she doesn’t want it. If a wife is encouraged to pour her heart out to her husband and if he opens his heart to her, it’s easier for her to speak gracefully to other people and to her husband. If she’s frustrated and angry because he won’t talk to her, however, Satan can tempt her to fall into gossip so that she ends up biting and devouring other people:
But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Galatians 5:15
A woman’s other temptation is the independence Satan offered Eve. He told her she’d be independent of God and of her husband. Belonging to her husband means giving up her independence, which is hard for a woman to do if her husband isn’t hers.
This pastor never accepted any responsibility when his relationship went boom. He saw no reason why women couldn’t submit; he often said that all she had to do was lie there, he had no idea how hard it is for a woman to submit, so he blamed women for everything that goes wrong in marriage. A lot of men blame women in the same way. Some men say that the commands to a woman to submit are unconditional, that she’s to submit regardless of what he does. That’s true, but the commands God gave husbands are also unconditional, he’s to belong to her no matter what. A husband can easily make it nearly impossible for his wife to submit to him or belong to him.
I Cor 11:9 says, “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” Being made for a man, your wife probably understands you better than you understand her and she’ll probably care more about pleasing you than you care about pleasing her. The Bible tells how God made women for men:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
Women should try hard to understand this verse. First, God multiplied sorrow by giving most women stronger, more sensitive emotions than men have. This makes it easy for you to hurt your wife, but it also makes her more sensitive to your wants so that she can please you.
God also said that a woman would desire her husband and that he would rule her. How did God do this? What is the difference between a woman’s husband and all the other men in her life? If she’s a virtuous woman as described in Proverbs 31, her husband is the only man who makes love to her, the only man who humbles her. When you enter your wife’s body, you remind her that you are the man she desires and that you are the man who rules her. This makes her more sensitive to you and makes her feel dependent on you.
This makes sense – God wants children to have fathers. It helps children have fathers if a woman clings to the man who takes her. It also helps guide the house. When you’re around, making love makes her feel dependent so she can follow you. When you’re gone, her independence comes back and she runs the house. What happens when you get back? You make love to her, she feels dependent again and you’re back in charge.
Now that you understand some of the effect on a woman, what happens if she doesn’t know that her husband is pleased with her or if she thinks that he isn’t pleased with her? She becomes more sensitive to him each time they make love, but if she thinks he isn’t pleased with her, extra sensitivity hurts her so she doesn’t like it. If she knows he’s pleased with her, on the other hand, making love increases her sensitivity to his happiness with her and she likes it. The key is talking with your wife so that she’s certain you’re happy with her. Your happiness with her makes her happy to be yours. The attitude of your heart toward her is the key.
There are many commands which tell men how to love their wives, but King Solomon didn’t know how. Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, but he didn’t understand women:
Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28
Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (I Ki. 11:3). He knew it should have been very good:
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
Solomon counted his women one by one, it should have been wonderful, why didn’t it work for him? Women are driven to talk. When a wife can’t talk to her husband, she usually ends up biting and devouring other women in her frustration. Solomon had 1,000 jealous women biting and devouring each other.
I work out of my house; I’m pretty much always at home. My wife comes to me to recharge her batteries every couple of hours. I stop what I’m doing and talk to her, or hold her, or help her, whatever she needs. She recharges in a couple of minutes, and she’s off keeping the home again. Solomon had 1,000 women yearning to talk to him. How could he get anything done? This is how harems work:
Again Esther spake unto Hatach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai; all the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or women, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days. Esther 4:10-11 see also Esther 2:12-14 to see how bad it was for women
Solomon’s women came when he called and stayed away when he didn’t call, but he had no joy in them. Solomon wasn’t the only ruler who had trouble with his harem. Esther 1:10-12 tells how King Ahasuerus became so angry when his wife Vashti wouldn’t show herself at his drunken stag party that he put her away. Belonging to a ruler wasn’t always good for women. How do you think Esther felt about her husband ignoring her for 30 days? What do you think he did when he wasn’t seeing her? How did she feel about that? It could be crummy for women, but why didn’t owning 1,000 women work for Solomon?
I’ve asked many men this question. They usually say, “Women are unmanageable,” few admit that the fault might lie with Solomon. What didn’t Solomon know? He himself wrote down the answer:
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
Read the Song, particularly 8:2-3, you’ll find that she liked belonging to her husband. We know what it means for a woman to belong to a man, but if she doesn’t like it, his soul is as empty.
God expects you to be glad to give yourself to your wife, but Solomon didn’t think of marriage as a man belonging to his wife and being hers. Deu. 17:17 told him not to “multiply wives.” Having so many women made his life empty. He said, “my soul seeketh, but I find not.” Solomon should have known that a woman has to have a man belong to her in order to enjoy belonging to him. Solomon had life and death power over his wives, there was no, “I have a headache,” or “I’m not in the mood,” but they didn’t like belonging to him so he missed the joy and glory that God intended that his wife bring into his life.
We didn’t realize what had gone wrong for ten years or so after our pastor’s pursuit of his wife blew up in his face, but here it comes. God’s plan is that husband and wife be glad to belong to each other. Belonging to her means that you’ll open your heart to her whenever she wants to talk to you. Opening your heart means listening with the desire to completely understand what she’s trying to say. You should listen as though your life depends on it. Once you understand, then you act on it, that’s what the Bible means by “dwell according to knowledge.” She sometimes wants you to do something, other times she just wants to hear your view of what’s going on. Maybe your logic can help her feel less emotional about it.
Being hers means that it’s her life for your life and your life for her life. You don’t belong to yourself:
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? I Corinthians 6:19
Christians belong to God. If you’re God’s, can’t God expect you to belong to the wife He gave you?
And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
God not only expects you to belong to your wife, He expects you to sacrifice yourself and become one with her. The only way you can become one with your wife and belong to her is to die to yourself and be hers. If you and she both follow God’s plan, your marriage should be wonderful as God wants it to be.
God wanted marriage to be wonderful, the bride and groom both wanted it to be wonderful, married people want to please each other. When marriage isn’t wonderful, when it’s Hell on earth, is it God’s fault? No, it means that someone has been selfish! The book of Proverbs says 5 times that an unhappy wife is a hardship, why is she unhappy? She’s made for him, why is she contentious? It’s usually leadership. I Cor 11:3 says that the man is in charge, “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Jesus said, “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.” Mark 10:44. If you want to lead your wife, you’ll have to serve her.
The way you treat your wife is important:
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40
Whatever you do to your wife, you do to Christ. If you yell at her, you yell at Christ. If you appreciate her, if you praise her, you praise and appreciate Christ, if you refuse her, you refuse Christ. If you don’t sacrifice yourself after marriage, your wife won’t like belonging to you, and your soul will be as empty as Solomon’s.
How do you Sacrifice to serve Marriage?
Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:” people who don’t understand marriage often end up in divorce. Churches aren’t teaching people how to be married, that’s what this talk is all about.
A husband is commanded to know how to “possess his vessel in honor and sanctification,” few know how. I didn’t, but she had prayed for years that God would help her to be the wife He wanted her to be and that God would choose her husband. God led her to a man who naturally possessed her in the way God wanted her possessed. There’s no credit due to me at all; our happiness was a gift of God. Let’s see how it works.
Proverbs 31 is famous as the chapter which tells how to be a good wife, but it’s written to a man. Verse 1 tells who wrote it. Mrs. Lemuel[2] wrote one chapter in the Bible. She spent 9 verses telling her son how to run the kingdom: don’t get drunk, don’t mess with women, do justice, take care of people who’re suffering. That’s all there is to management. If a company treats customers and employees with justice, if the boss doesn’t mess with women or booze, if the company takes care of their people, the company prospers because the employees make it work. 1/3 of Proverbs 31 tells how to run the kingdom, 2/3 tells how to be married, which is more important? Most of you know that when the boss has trouble with his wife, work is awful.
Being a husband is a lot more complicated than being a boss or a king, that’s why Mrs. Lemuel said more about women than about running the kingdom. That’s why it took us 30 years to be able to explain it.
When a marriage goes wrong, someone has to change to put it right. One definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect a different result. Do you want what God promised? Do you believe His promise? Are you willing to change for the better? The man is the leader; you have to lead the change. If you want her to be yours, you have to belong to her. Belonging to her gives her rest, which makes it possible for her to be glad to belong to you. If you disagree with me, please ask God, “If he’s right, change me, if he’s wrong, help me change him.”
Why were women made? To keep men from being alone and to help them. My wife was made to be with me, what does she want? To help me (Gen 3:12, 16). She wants to know she’s helping, your wife wants to know you know she’s helping, she wants you to be pleased with her (1 Cor. 7:34), she wants you to belong to her. Most men say, “I married her, of course I’m hers,” but she has to know you’re hers.
Christ loves all sinners, but it doesn’t do a sinner any good unless someone tells the sinner of God’s love. Similarly, you may think you belong to your wife, but unless she knows it, belonging to her doesn’t do her much good.
Women forget. Her emotional batteries run down in a few hours, you must remind her several times a day that you’re pleased with her that you delight in having married her. Your wife notices any interest in other women. If you treat other women as women, she’s not “but one” to you and she knows you aren’t hers. You can interact with women as people but not as women. You may not know the difference but she does.
This is like salvation – we don’t do good works to earn salvation, but once we’re saved, we do good works out of gratitude to God. Good works come from faith in God (James 2:17-26). You don’t take care of your wife or belong to her to earn her, you belong to her and take care of her out of gratitude to her and to God.
Give your wife rest
If your wife knows beyond doubt that you like being hers, she can find rest in giving herself to you, in serving you, and in being yours. That’s what Naomi wanted for Ruth and Orpha:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
Jesus gives us rest:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
The Bible teaches that a woman desires to please her husband. If a man sets his wife free to please him as she desires, she’ll serve him in ways he could never imagine to command. Some years ago, I read:
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. I Timothy 3:12
“Wife,” I asked, “do I qualify, I don’t rule you, I hardly ever tell you what to do?”
“Husband,” she said, “you rule me utterly. Your ways aren’t natural to me, but we’ve talked enough that I know how you want things done. Just about everything I do, I know how you want it done and I do it your way.”
She desired to please me and chose to serve me out of love as Christ chose to die for sinners out of love. Learning of me so that she had confidence that I’d be pleased with her made my yoke easier and my burden lighter as learning what Christ expects of us makes His yoke easy and His burden light. I’d talked with her enough that she could follow me but not enough to realize how badly she wanted to please me or how my preferences ruled her. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was any way other than my way.
Once I knew how hard she worked to please me, I asked which of my ways were hard for her. We found many things where my way was a lot harder and the difference wasn’t worth her extra work. Changing back to her ways in some areas lightened her burden as she learned more of me. She’d always accepted my rule, but because I didn’t realize how much I ruled her, my yoke wasn’t as light as it should have been.
If your wife is secure in the knowledge that she knows your ways and that you’re hers, she can rest in belonging to you and be yours. It makes you happy for your wife to like belonging to you, and the way you make her like being yours is to show her that you like being hers. It’s in the Bible:
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
She understands that belonging to her husband means that he wants her. She rests in knowing that all his desire is toward her. He doesn’t see other women, he tells everyone that she’s “but one” to him (Song 6:9). She wants to keep his desire focused on her:
His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:3
What’s her reward? He’s hers, he doesn’t even see other women, she’s “but one” to him.
My wife tells her friends, “I am my lover’s and he is mine.” She’s mine and I’m hers. Am I less of a man because I belong to a woman? Am I less of a man because I give my wife rest in belonging to me? Am I less of a man because she and I talk enough that she knows she pleases me in all she does? Or does the fact that she likes belonging to me and encourages me to take her like the woman in the Song make me more of a man?
It’s a woman’s nature to belong to her husband, but it’s hard to belong to him unless he gives her rest in belonging to him. How do you give your wife rest? How do you make her happy to be yours?
Supporting your wife
God didn’t have to tell you that a happy woman makes you happy, you know that. My wife is happy to belong to me so her happiness makes me happy. When I give her money, what she buys makes her happy and that makes me happier than spending money in any other way. She seldom buys for herself, it’s usually for children, grandchildren, the house, or me. The Bible teaches that my spending money won’t make me happy. Solomon lost his kingdom, the people wouldn’t follow his son. Why? His taxes were too high. Why did he want so much money? To build cities, palaces, and buildings. Did it make him happy? No, he was miserable:
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Ecclesiastes 1:14
As Mrs. Lemuel warned, Solomon didn’t get along with his women, he spent tons of money on building programs, and it was all vanity, read Ecc. 2:1-11. Spending all that money didn’t make him happy and cost him the kingdom.
Solomon did everything he could think of (Ecc. 2:10) and it came to nothing, he had no joy in all his work. Ecc 9:9 says that all a man has is his work and his wife, that’s his life. I think God made men so that if a man’s woman is unhappy in belonging to him, he can’t be happy in anything. My wife likes being mine, and I enjoy my work. Having her be happy with me not only makes me happy in being hers, it makes me happy in the labor I’ve found to support her. Guys, you’re far better off letting your wife make you happy by being yours than trying to make yourself happy as Solomon did.
Be pleased with your wife
When she married you, your wife took on the yoke of pleasing you, but she expected that you’d not only be hers, she expected that you’d be happy to belong to her. How do you convince a woman that you’re glad to be hers? Mostly by being glad to be hers. Proverbs 31 is written to men. In addition to four commands about how to run the kingdom, Mrs. Lemuel gave her son one command for dealing with his wife:
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
Children are born selfish, they don’t praise their mother unless their father teaches them to do so. Your wife knows what you teach your children about her. When they praise her, it counts double. She likes their praise, and she gives you some of the credit because she knows you taught them.
Note what the husband says, “There are many good wives, but you’re the best there is.” Knowing that you think she’s better than any other woman makes her happy. Mrs. Lemuel taught her son to praise his wife; the Song of Solomon teaches you to praise your wife in mind-numbing detail. Read the Song, he praises her teeth, lips, temples, neck, breasts, feet, nose, head, hair, everything about her. In 4:7, he tells her that she’s perfect, she has no defects, she’s his treasure. My wife knows I appreciate every square inch of her, and her mind, too.
Women love details, they like to be noticed. When you comment on little things about her, she knows you’re paying attention. If you were told that a spy had been chosen to resemble your wife, could you tell other people how to tell her from the imposter? My wife has light fur on her nose. You can’t see the fur unless the light’s just right, but it’s there, I’ve noticed. Her thumbs bend way backward, I don’t understand how she can play the piano. She likes my praising little details about her. Praise comes before pursuit. Pursuing your wife convinces her that you mean the praise, but pursuing her won’t work unless she already likes being yours. Praise first, then pursue. Paying all that attention to her makes you appreciate her and helps you become hers.
Sanctify your wife
Mrs. Lemuel taught men to praise their wives, the New Testament explains that praise sanctifies your wife:
That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: I Thessalonians 4:4-5
How do you handle a woman? With both hands, of course, but that’s not enough. Men get very intense about taking their wives. Unless you praise her enough to make it clear that you’ve sanctified her, unless she knows that you’ve set her apart from all other women, she thinks that any woman would do. Do you think that a woman likes thinking of herself as an interchangeable sexual appliance? She wants to think that you’re coming after her because you’ve set her apart from all other women as uniquely desirable as a person, as a companion, as someone to talk to, and not just because you lust after her body.
Your wife needs specific, detailed praise. A woman can be won through flattery, we say, “He gave her a line,” but flattery won’t work for very long after you’re married. God told Eve, “thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” God was telling Eve that He had made women especially sensitive to a man who takes her. A bad guy can flatter a good girl so that she thinks he loves her and lets him take her. After he takes her, she’s much more sensitive to him and sees that he’s lying, but by then it’s a bit late.
You see this in the Bible. Delilah complained to Samson, “How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?” Judges 16:15. We know what happened. Samson was a big, strong, handsome man. He liked Delilah, he told her he loved her, he sweet-talked her, and he took her. She was now his, but he wasn’t hers. He took her but he scorned her by not being hers as she’d expected. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; we know the result of her fury. After a man takes a woman, flattery doesn’t work as well.
As your wife becomes more sensitive to you, your praise has to talk about things she thinks are worthwhile. You have to praise her thoughts; her ideas, and her mind. Sanctifying her means that you love, desire, and honor her entire being, not just her body.
You are commanded to know how to possess your wife in “sanctification and honor.” Sexual experimentation can make a woman feel like an object, toy, or animal. Many women have told my wife they feel like prostitutes even though they’re married. Sexual interaction that makes her uncomfortable can make her feel that she’s been dragged through the gutter by the very man who should raise her up in honor.
If your sexual approach makes her feel anything other than honor, she loses her peace in belonging to you and gets a negative attitude toward physical interaction. Given that you want to make love more often than she does, isn’t it pretty stupid to do anything that makes your wife want it less? You have to get to know her pretty well to know how to make her feel honored and sanctified when you make love.
Get to know your wife
Sanctifying your wife requires that you get to know what makes her special. Having learned what makes her different from all other women, you have to act on what you learn.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
A few months after we were married, I realized that I ought to know my wife better. I knew that she was God’s gift to me, but she confused me. She did things that other men had told me would annoy me, but the Bible said that she was a good and perfect gift for me. She’d been told that many things about women annoy men but we gave God the benefit of the doubt. I decided that if God put some characteristic in her which was true of most women, it was for my good. If I couldn’t see how it was good, that was my problem, not God’s. Once she understood that I wanted to learn how she was good for me instead of figuring out how she was bad for me, she was eager to help me learn about her.
It took us nearly 20 years to figure out how some of her traits bless me, but I am convinced that everything God put in her blesses me. Can you assume that? Can you give God the benefit of the doubt?
Be practical. Suppose you treat your wife that way. Suppose you act as if she’s a perfect gift from God for you, won’t that make her happier? And won’t you be happier if she’s happier with you?
This takes time. It took me 2 or 3 years to begin to understand how my wife blessed me. After we’d been married nearly 30 years, I thought I had some knowledge of women, but what I know of her doesn’t help with other women. It once took me 1.5 hours to understand one simple point my son’s wife was trying to make, she doesn’t think the same way my wife thinks. She was right and I was wrong, by the way, and I’m glad I took the time to understand what she was trying to say, but a man can spend the hours and hours this takes with only one woman. Opening your heart takes a lot of time, her need is measured in hours per day.
How to lead your wife
Leading a wife takes a lot of talk. God said that her desire would be to you, she wants to follow you, but a woman can’t follow unless she understands the plan in detail. If a husband says, “Let’s go on a picnic,” her mind fills with questions. She wants to know where they’re going and what’s there. Are there bathrooms? Is there a playground? How long will we be gone? How many diapers? How many meals? Should we bring swimsuits? What about coats and toys? Your wife can’t follow you unless she knows what you want.
Women are so sensitive to men that many men get impatient, “Of course she understood, she’s just rebellious,” but that’s not fair. God made her sensitive to you so that she could read your heart, she can’t read your mind. She knows when you’re happy with her and when you’re unhappy, but she can’t know what you want unless you tell her. You lead your wife through discussion. If she knows what you want, she’ll want to make you happy by doing it. Your wife thinks very differently and it takes lots of discussion so that she understands your plan and you understand how she plans to carry it out.
My wife had a boyfriend who led the church youth group. One day the pianist was sick so he asked her to play a song. She told him she couldn’t do that one and offered him several others, but he insisted on the one he wanted. She loved him so she did as he asked, but she played poorly and he was angry with her. She had warned him she couldn’t do it, he told her to go ahead, she submitted, she failed, and he was angry. Was this just?
A man is supposed to dwell with his wife according to knowledge of her. A lot of a man’s frustration with his wife comes either because he asked her to do something she couldn’t do or he didn’t explain the plan well enough. Jesus explained why you must explain in detail:
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. John 15:15
Jesus told the disciples “all things” His Father had told Him. Servants do what they’re told, they don’t know what’s going on. Not explaining makes your wife into a servant, letting her in on the plan in great detail makes her your friend. Which approach makes her happier to be your wife?
The Bible says that a church leader must rule his wife well (1 Tim. 3:4), but you rule her by talking to her so that she knows how to fulfill her desire to please you (Gen. 3:16, 1 Cor. 7:34). My wife did things my way without my telling her, so I thought my way was the only way. Talking to her had made it easier for her to belong to me because she knew me well enough to be confident that I’d be pleased with what she did.
Rewards of Sacrifice to serve Marriage
Knowing what God said about marriage gives hope to someone in a failing marriage. God likes faith. Do you believe what the Bible says about salvation? Do you believe what the Bible says about creation? What about women, families, and marriage? Are you willing to sacrifice yourself to receive the blessings of marriage? Do you believe that a wife is a good and perfect gift from God?
Be logical. Would you want to be married to you and do what your wife does? Why would any woman want to do that? Because God put it into their hearts. If women didn’t have a strong emotional desire to hang around with men, they wouldn’t.
A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs 12:4
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
Do you believe that? How can you believe John 3:16, which says God cared enough about your soul to give you salvation through sending His Son to die to cleanse you of sin and not believe that He cares enough about your life on earth to give you a good and perfect wife to bless you?
God made women because it is not good for man to be alone. Men pursue women intensely, men know that a woman is good, every man wants one. Do you know the song, “Stairway to heaven?” “I’ll build a stairway to heaven, I’ll climb to the highest star, I’m gonna build a stairway to heaven, ‘cause heaven is where you are.” Everybody knows that a woman can give a man the joys of Heaven, but she can’t do it alone.
A woman is a mirror, not a light. If you give her love, and appreciation, she multiplies your love and fills the house with love and light. If you give her anger or criticism, she multiplies that. You reap what you sow to your wife, real quick.
Very few men know how to make a wife happy. God made her to help him, she becomes unhappy if he won’t let her help or doesn’t appreciate her help. A woman’s desire is to her husband (Gen. 3:16). A woman wants a man who likes her help and likes opening his heart to her. Helping him and serving makes her his, opening his heart to her makes him hers. She wants to belong to a man who likes belonging to her. There’s no joy this side of Heaven like having a woman like belonging to you. If you convince her you’re glad you married her and set her free, she’ll use her sensitivity to serve you in ways you could never think to command.
Marriage prospers if a man treats his wife as God’s perfect gift to him and she acts as God’s gift to him.
Can you look your wife in the eye and tell her, “For God so loved man that He gave him women, for God so loved Me that he gave me you?” If you can say that, and mean it, and act on it, your marriage will prosper.
[1] Some point out that Ruth, as a widow, had no tokens of virginity to shed when Boaz took her. God’s plan to seal marriage covenants with blood is too long to address here. I Cor 7 shows a distinction between a virgin marrying and a widow marrying. The two cases are dealt with separately, which shows that God understands the difference even if we don’t.
[2] Some scholars say that King Lemuel was King Solomon, but I doubt this for two reasons: 1) Solomon’s mother Bathsheeba told Solomon that Adonijah had asked permission to marry Abishag and Solomon killed him. Mrs. Lemuel clearly understood politics better than Bathsheeba and would have told Adonijaj not to do something so stupid. 2) Solomon clearly didn’t know how simple it is to make a woman happy, he was mystified that his wives didn’t like belonging to him. Mrs. Lemuel would’ve reamed him out for having so many wives and told him to choose one and appreciate her. He might have married lots of woment anyway, but at least he’d have known why he was unhappy.
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