“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get,
it’s what you are expected to give, which is everything”.
Anonymous
The Christian marriage is a reflection of God’s love and glory on planet earth. But why are marriages breaking down at an alarming rate? Why something that was instituted and blessed by God becoming a source of calamity instead of peace and joy? The root cause can be traced to lack of total submission to God. You cannot love and cleave unto a woman without first of all cleaving and loving the Lord. The same principle applied to the woman. She cannot submit to a man without being submissive to God first.
For marriage to be truly intimate and fulfilling, it must be in subjection to God first, before adjustment can be possible. Through metabolized Doctrine in their souls, husband and wife can render aggressive and responding love toward God.
From a biblical study of marriage, we learn that there are two categories of agape love. First, there is aggressive love of enduring devotion. Second, there is responding love of respect. Both categories were operational in the humanity of Jesus Christ when He hung on the cross as a substitute for every human who would ever live throughout human history.
These same two categories of agape love are potential to every believer. They are made available from the moment of salvation. They become operational in the life of every Church Age believer when he/she chooses to execute the unique spiritual life associated with the Church Age. At the moment of salvation, every believer, whether male or female, enters into a personal relationship with God the Father. Associated with personal relationship is "personal responsibility," and personal responsibility is predicated upon every born-again Christian, both male and female. This means that each born-again believer is personally responsible to execute the unique spiritual life associated with the Church Age.
In their "personal responsibility" as members of the Body of Christ, both husband and wife should manifest aggressive love of enduring devotion and responding love of respect toward God as manifestations of their equal privilege and equal opportunity; however, in their "corporate responsibility" as marriage partners, only one category is mandated for each marriage partner as a manifestation of their corporate relationship. The aggressive love of enduring devotion is mandated of the husband toward his wife, and the responding love of respect is mandated of the wife toward her husband.
EQUAL PRIVILEGE AND OPPORTUNITY
At the moment of salvation, the very nature of God the Father's plan is to provide equal privilege and equal opportunity for every Church Age believer, both male and female. And how do they have equal privilege and equal opportunity? Each are equally privileged to have received the same number of irrevocable divine operating assets at the moment of salvation, and each have equal opportunity to execute the unique spiritual life associated with the Church Age.
The husband is mandated to have aggressive love toward his wife in the sense that he is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her. This is enduring devotion and it includes intensive love. This intensive love has a response from the wife's love. True love is always in the soul. True love comes in two categories:
enduring devotion and
enduring respect.
The divine mandated to “
love his wife as Christ loved the church” is the husband’s role of aggressive love in marriage. (Ephesians 5:25). He initiates an enduring devotion that elevates his wife above every other human relationship. Loyalty and consecration from virtue in his soul characterize such intensive love. He exercises thoughtful leadership in the home, honoring the freedom of his wife.
The divine mandate to respect her husband “as unto the Lord” is the wife’s role of responding love in the marriage. (Ephesians 5:33). She honors and submits to his leadership in trust and admiration. She gives deference to his wills, judgement, and opinions. His dedication results in unequivocal esteem and partiality from her. In her thoughts and actions, her husband is given consideration beyond all other men, making him first on her scale of values; however, many of today's wives look for other options because they have no love for God.
In fact, a responding woman is a sweet smell of success. This is responding love, and she was actually created as "Isha," the responder. Adam was created as “Ish,” the one who is aggressive. Without this knowledge, we would not know that agape love actually comes in two categories, even though it is one word that describes it (agape).
Since God is eternal and immutable, His love is unchanging and enduring. Both the quality and the quantity remain the same from eternity – Jer. 31 v 3. Now those who appropriate His grace in salvation cannot be separated from His love. No matter how marriage fails, the love of God will sustain it.
Love in Marriage
The Husband, the Aggressor = The Wife, the Responder.
He begins with enduring devotion toward her = She responds with respect toward him.
His enduring devotion is intensive love toward her = Her respect is deference and admiration toward him
He has enduring loyalty toward her = She responds with honor toward him.
He consecrates himself to her = She answers with esteem toward him
He dedicates himself to her = She answers with consideration and partiality toward him.
The moment we are born-again there is the potential in our soul for "enduring devotion" and " enduring respect," the two categories of love to be used in marriage, but they will not function in marriage unless there is first of all "enduring devotion" and "respect" for God the Father. Every believer has the same potential for "enduring devotion" and "respect" for God.
Until "enduring devotion" and "respect" for God become a reality in the life of the husband who is a Church Age believer, that Christian husband cannot execute the mandate found in Ephesians 5:25.
There is no greater demonstration of love for God the Father than in the fulfillment of the mandate that God the Father has given to the believing husband in marriage.
LOVE AND RESPECT
The responsibilities for manifesting aggressive love and responding love are separated in Christian marriage because of the specific responsibility assigned by God the Father to the Christian husband and Christian wife toward each other.
Both the Christian husband and the Christian wife possess aggressive love and responding love from the moment of salvation. If the wife does not first manifest aggressive love toward God, she will never manifest respect toward her husband. The husband must have enduring devotion for God the Father, otherwise, he will never fulfill his mandate to love his wife as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself as a substitute for her. Without this component, their spiritual life and marriage will succumb to bitterness, anger, and malice. Only true soul-love can express the kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness between husband and wife, and activate the “Grace of Life” to enable them cohabit together for eternity.
There is no true love in the soul of a believer for the spouse unless there is first of all true love in the soul for God. There is no way that a wife is ever going to respect her husband that she cannot stand unless she first has respect for God.
Suppose a wife becomes disillusioned with her husband, and because of her disillusion she engages in a relationship with another man. Why does she do it? She does it because the other man is more important to her than was God. She does it because she has no "staying power" in the marriage. Suppose a husband becomes disillusioned with his wife, and because of his disillusion he engages in a relationship with another woman. Why does he do it? He does it because the other woman is more important to him than was God. He does it because he has no "staying power" in the marriage.
The word ‘love’, Greek Agape, is defined as “exercise of the will drawn out of the divine nature of God; affectionate devotion”. In addition, the word ‘Respect’, Greek Meros, means “to look away from all else at one object; to reference; to pay attention to; relate to or be concerned with”. Love and respect are the product of soul-coalescence. A soul love of this caliber is related to integrity. This dynamic of true love in the soul is phenomenal and is not to be confused with the silliness and nonsense that is called "love," today.
Whenever the husband is aggressive, it is expected that the wife respond immediately. The ground in which she responded, she had the same love as equivalent. She respects and honors him. And as a weaker vessel (1 Pet. 3 v 7), the husband honor and demonstrate enduring loyalty. He do not forces his way into her but recognize her volition. This is the highest love a man can show unto his wife, recognizing her emotion and volition. The man that understands his wife’s volition exercises enduring love and devotion until she pleases. Her submission is beautiful. She becomes everything to the man. A man that does not recognize the woman’s volition only have interest in her body. And the more he concentrates on her body, the more he begins to lose the value of her body. The secret to any woman’s body is her volition. So, we have a reciprocal honor whenever the wife submits out of her volition.
The reciprocal honor of the husband starts with his enduring loyalty, but the honor that the wife render is a response to that. And that changes a woman. She is not fooling herself with any one in town, but committed, and occupies with the thought of her Right Man. He is the only icon in her spirit, therefore, she concentrate more on him and less on been accepted here and there, socially and in other ways by men. This is the new revolutionary dimension of the 21st century marriages.
THE ACT OF RESPONDING
True love only exists in the soul realm and not in the body. The body is only the extension of true love when it comes from the soul.
Now, here is the soul correlation of the husband and wife. When this is in place, sex will no longer be a problem. Where it exist, the correlation of bodies through sex will be fantastic, in fact, a holiday trip to the Garden of Eden. Every time it occurs, it becomes a phenomenal thing.
According to medical research, there are hormones in both male and female that stimulates the development of sex characteristic. Men have an abundance of testosterone raging through their bodies that males them Aggressive. Testosterone is a hormone produced by the testes, responsible for the development and maintenance of Secondary Sexual Characteristics; the most potent of the naturally produced androgens, it is produced in the Leydig’s cells under control of Luteinizing (interstitial cell stimulating) hormone.
Women on the other hands are ruled by estrogen, which makes them Receptive. Estrogen is general term for the female sex hormones, responsible for stimulating the development and maintenance of female Secondary Sex Characteristics; formed in the ovary.
Testosterone and estrogen monitor internal or external conditions and react or respond, to changes in accordance with the needs of our body. Husbands and wives have this inbuilt capacity to respond specifically to internal and external stimulation.
The way of a man and his maid proved the existence of aggressive love in the husband’s part and responding love in the wife’s part. Her response is a virtue that comes from the soul. The Canticle shades more prophetic insight on the life style of husband and wife.
“Thou hast RAVISHED my heart, my Sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck”. S/S. 4 v 9.
The word ‘ravished’ means, “to intoxicate, encompass, embrace and satisfy the need of one another”. The wife’s duty during love-play is to intoxicate her Right Man as he fondles with her breast and other parts of her body. Systematically, she responds with a blinking of the eyes, soft murmuring, encouraging noise, sounds of pleasure, gasping and shivering. This is the portrait of a responding woman, when she has what seems like an epileptic episode and her entire body is one big nerve hypersensitive to the slightest touch or breath. She responds with great admiration whenever he touches her. But unfortunate, some women are as ice block.
Stimulation is all in the brain. Yes, the brain is the biggest sex organ. It is the center for all human behaviors, including sex. There are chemicals in the brain that play a role in sex. These chemicals are dopamine, opiate serotonin and oxytocin. These brain chemicals play a role in the woman’s attraction to the man’s cologne, his face, muscle and touch. The brain is the organ that zeroes in on him not the genitals.
According to Proverb 5 v 19-20, she satisfies him with her breast at all time. That is a responding woman. The word ‘Respond’ can be define as “showing sensitivity by your behavior or attitude; a corresponding action; a performing of answer”. This is what describes the function and responsibility of the Right Woman to keep her marriage ablaze. She does not wait until he asks for sex, she responds by displaying her breast before him, ravishing his heart. As a responder, she is very sensitive to his needs and desires. S/S. 1 v 13; 2 v 3-6.
AN ENDURING DEVOTION
The husband initiates an enduring devotion in the marriage. Devotion is define as “an enthusiastic addiction or loyalty to something; a divine worship”. The husband is to have this component in his leadership. This was used in the spiritual life of worship to God, and now uses in a different sense. The woman in turns developed and expresses enduring submission and respect to his leadership just the way she portrayed it in the worship of God.
A further definition of respect is to fear with a touch of awe. The combination of fear and awe develops the highest form of responding love that a woman can have for a man. This respect is deduced from the husband’s enduring devotion.
The problem with people is that they don’t understand that marriage is designed to take any man and make a leader out of him. A woman is not to marry a man, no matter how attractive he may be, unless he is a leader. How will you know that? He must demonstrate aggressive love and enduring devotion towards God and secondly, towards you that arouses your deference and admiration for him. Warning! Do not confuse aggressive love with infatuation. Infatuation is a wild and foolish love that last only for a short time. When you develop an infatuation for someone, you always find a reason to believe that is exactly the right person for you. It does not need to be a good reason. In the haze of infatuation, it’s just what you have been searching for all these years. Aggressive love is the outcome of the soul and not emotional.
Nobody can make it in marriage if the foundation is built only on emotion (Sex, romance, beauty etc) without the components that revealed a correlation of soul. Sex is but one of the many satisfactions in married life, but unless there is, soul-love, nothing else can be right and long lasting.
Finally, if a husband or wife is not executing his or her spiritual life, they have no staying power in marriage. They have missed the greatest dynamic of all human history, that fantastic love, that staying power manifested by Jesus Christ on the cross.
