Unconditional Love

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.

Ephesians 5:25

Counselors of all persuasions agree that nothing can drive a wedge between married couples faster than connecting love to performance, especially when husbands communicate to their wives, “Perform or else.” “Keep a perfect house, raise great kids, support my career, and provide meaningful intimacy—and do it happily—and I’ll love you,” says the husband who treats his marriage like a business deal.

The Bible puts Christ in the place of the husband and the church in the place of the wife and says husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church. That means husbands are to love their wives unconditionally—no strings attached. God’s kind of love is unconditional, and it is His complete love that makes us feel accepted and embraced by Him. With conditions comes failure, with failure comes separation, and with separation comes loneliness. Wives who are lonely in their marriages today are most likely married to husbands who practice conditional love.

Husband, if you need a model for how to love your wife, study the way Jesus Christ loves you.

Every Christian family ought to be, as it were, a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules.

JONATHAN EDWARDS