158. Eph. 5:25-33 The Massive Thought of Love part 158

Looking back on Ephesians 5 we began in verses 1,2 with the perfection of love.  Ephesians 5:1 shapes this precision of genuine love as springing from our relationship to God our Father.

As children imitate their fathers, we, as God’s children, are to copy him. We’re to live our lives in love, the same sort of love which Christ gives us and which he perfectly expressed when he gave himself up for us in sacrifice to God.  He gave and God gave as John 3:16 gives us the perspective of Jesus when he not only says God loves the world but also says He SO LOVES the world that He gave.

We read of acts of valor and fearless courage as a Medal of Honor is given to a warrior who gives his life in combat to deliver his friends and fellow soldiers.  Some in a rare action of love throw their bodies on a grenade or explosive entrapment, sacrificing them selves in an act of passion and love.

But this love that Christ gives us, where He perfectly expressed eternal love to the Father in a sacrifice to God, was so immense, so vast and colossal that it even goes beyond diving on a grenade for a friend but to the extreme of sacrificing for all His enemies. God was sacrificing His Son in love as He was reconciling the world and exhibiting His precious gift to us and for us to all that rejected and spurned His love with vicious murderous hatred.

What kind of love is this to run to the enemy lines and shield an enemy insurgent from bullets and destruction?  Not just one enemy but all antagonists and adversaries are afforded the privilege of the efficiency of being covered by His shielding love.

But this was more then a grenade, even more then a nuclear deployment.  What He threw His shielding life on was beyond all the destructive devices of the world.  He placed his person, between us, and all the infinite everlasting wrath of Gods justice and took all our sin on His self.  He perfectly answered for every twist and deviation of departure from right, beginning from the first to the last crime ever done. He took on His person a limitless, eternal, inestimable explosion for every crime and every criminal, as sin is a crime against God’s perfection.  This exactness God would have is the gold standard of true love to God, and tender love for each other.

Why would we not receive His love?  How could we shove Him aside?  Who would want to take the eternal infinite repercussions for their own departure and denunciation from His perfect love gift?

Now if God did this, while we were sinners, and Christ reached out to us, in this infinite sacrifice of Him self, when we were His enemies.  For He was defeating all against us, removing all between God and us, by making us right, in pouring His blood out for us.

We now, by receiving His life, of taking our place, and accepting His forgiveness of love, of taking all God’s judgment for us, don’t have any fear of wrath.  Jesus put us into a friendship relationship, with a perfect, loving, eternal Father.

Now salvation is living in us. Love is living through us from Him.  We’ve been broken free from the prison of sin to the freedom of love, joy and peace.

I was just texting my son about his need of a car.  We were discussing various models and the pros and cons of them.

I suggested that since God so loves the world, and that being everyone, well then, that means every car that we see was given to that person by God.  That means, every time we drive by a car, or see a car, we can thank God for giving that auto to them.  If we see a thousand cars a day or more we could adore His gift to each one.  Then as we thank Him, we ask Him for the best ride He has for us.  We don’t have to place a timetable, but we could ask, seek, knock, and bang, and scream, and praise, and enjoy His great giving.

This may seem a digression, from the subject of love for each other, as married lovers, but really the point is that God is love, and love is about giving, and we are to walk with Him in love, and as we see all He has given, we can revel in His love.  He is giving all the time.  We need to express in humble words, our personal need of all His constant gifts, of his favor of Him self to us, and His kindness in us, and His assistances through us.

There are thirty five ways we are to love in marriage as spread out by the Spirit of Christ in Ephesians 5:25-33.  I will lay it out as an outline overview and then we will take it one at a time in examination.

A Love of Adoration v.25-33

  Requirements v.25

The Channel                             Husbands Love Your Wife

A Detailed Love                     As Christ also loves the Church

A Denying Love                     and gave himself for it

A Distinguished Love          v.23 For the husband is the head of the wife

A Denoting Love                    even as Christ is the head of the church

A Delivering Love                  and he is the savior of the body

A Dignifying Love                  v.26 That he might sanctify

A Disinfecting Love               and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word

A Donating Love                      v.27 That he might present it to himself

A Demonstrative Love            a glorious church,

A Deleting Love                         not having spot

A Diligent Love                          Or wrinkle or any such thing

A Developing Love                    But that it should be holy

A Defining Love                          and without blemish

Thoughtfully Considerate    v.28 So ought men to love their wives

Tenderly Close                           as their own bodies

Touchingly Confidential        He that loves his wife loves himself

Temperately Certain                v.29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh

Triggered in Care                       but nourishes

A Devoted Love                              and cherishes it,

A Destination Love                       even as the Lord the church:

Tethered Composition               v.30 For we are members

          Truthful Channel

Primarily Jesus Love Through Us      of his body,

Philosophical Solid                            of his flesh,

Physiologically Enter-twinning     and of his bone

        A Definite Abandoned Association    v.31For this cause shall a man leave his                                                                                                 leave his father and mother

An Aligned Attachment                       and shall be joined unto his wife

 An Appropriate Amalgamation       and they two shall be one flesh

A Deep Love                       v.32 This is

A Secretive Love           a great mystery

A Sacred Love               but I speak concerning Christ and the church