When God said that the love between a husband and wife is like the love between Christ and His church, He didn’t use the love between Christ and the church to help us understand the love that between husband and his wife. Instead, it is the love of husband and wife which helps us to understand the love between Christ and His church. When He said this, He was not referring to the worldly perspective of marriage, but to His original creation. The intimacy and way in which a husband lays down his life should reflect the way in which Jesus laid His life down. Because of that deep love, the church can deeply trust Christ. When a wife knows her husband will protect her with his life, how could she not trust him with her life? The intimacy in the Lord’s original design includes becoming one in body, one in mind, one in soul, and even one in spirit.

God has not called my husband and I to be one simply because of marriage. But to carry one cross together. Just like Simon helped Jesus to carry the cross, the Lord has also placed us together to help carry each other’s burdens – the temptations, the mistakes from our past, and the consequences that came with them. The Lord placed us together to make the perfect combination – He made me the ears and eyes and made my husband the hands and feet of our relationship. We are not just two people married to each other, but a part of His body. To perfectly serve the Lord together, and to bring glory to the Father by doing His will. By His Spirit, we are drawn closer to each other, and we understand each other in a deeper way. We have the same passion for the Lord and for His glory to be seen. Our joy is built on the hope that we are running after Christ together, our conversations go beyond our day to day lives and reflect His Kingdom. At the days pass, we both know it is not about us, but about Christ. It is never about what he can offer me, or how I can serve him. It is about how we can witness the glory of Jesus together, in and through our lives and our marriage. Because He, Jesus, is our first love. I am blessed to say Jesus is my husband’s first love, and He is also mine.

Husband and wife, return to the first love, we love because He first loved us. Without His love and our response to His love, we can never properly love each other, nor fully live out the love between a husband and wife, which reflects Christ and His church. I pray that you will take this truth into your heart and live it out through your life: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21, NIV) First, return to the first love!