What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

In the Bible, we find two realities to which we are to respond: God’s commands and God’s promises. God calls us to obey His commands and trust His promises. Most of us have sung the song "Trust and Obey,” which captures these two quintessential truths.

Of course, none of us trust and obey perfectly. Our shortcomings keep us humble. In our good-faith efforts to follow, we realize we need God’s help. And that should provide for us great comfort, knowing that He is for us, not against us, and He promises to extend grace and mercy to help us in time of need.

But there is another point I wish to make here, which is rather simple but can be missed. If we can choose to trust God’s promises and obey His commands, we can also choose to distrust His promises and disobey His commands.

This is a choice between two options. Either-or. This or that. One or the other.

Simply stated, God's Word puts us in a position to make this choice. Will we choose to follow or will we choose to not follow?

We hear God’s call in Joshua 24:15, "choose for yourselves today whom you will serve.” Joshua made his choice: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Others made the choice to not follow God.

An application to the married revolves around the command in Ephesians 5:33 for husbands to put on love toward the spirit of their wives and for wives to put on respect toward the spirit of their husbands. Will we choose to follow God’s command to love and respect, or will we choose to not follow His command?

Put another way, we are called to choose to show unconditional positive regard toward the spirit of our spouse as we confront things in them that are not lovable or respectable. Will we be this kind of person? Or, will we choose to not be this person?

In this sense, the Love and Respect message enables a spouse to make a decision to trust and obey or to not trust and obey.

As for Husbands

The Love and Respect message enables husbands to choose to trust and obey God's command to love their wives as a demonstration of their love and reverence for Christ.

The husband can choose to obey what Paul wrote in 5:25, 29, which is to love his wife "as Christ" loves the church, or he can choose to disobey.

Many husbands focus on their side of Ephesians 5:33, which is God‘s command to love their wives, and they stay on their side of the verse.

This is about doing what God calls them to do. They do not focus on what their wife is supposed to do. That is God’s command to a wife, though I need to add that a husband can humbly express his need.

But there’s another side to all of this that is ungodly. Indeed, Ephesians 5:33 brings every husband to a crossroads. Alarmingly, some men make a choice to distrust and disobey God's command. This is evidenced by their harsh and hostile treatment of their wives. I wrote in Love & Respect about a wife who had to deal with such an abusive husband: "Now whenever he senses anything that smacks of disrespect, even when it isn’t, it reminds him of our past and he gets infuriated. I haven’t seen such rage in awhile. . . . Actually, I regret letting him know about what I had learned from you because he uses it against me each time. . . . his rage is withering and makes me want to get away and hide” (pages 282-83).

This is what the Bible calls disobedience, transgression, lawlessness, or sin.

Such husbands jump over to the other side of the verse and point their fingers at their wives for not respecting them. They are unloving, dishonorable, and embittered husbands (Colossians 3:19). They should be pointing a finger at themselves.

At the deepest level, they decide to be irreverent and unloving toward Christ. These men choose against God’s revelation to love.

It is not for the husband to command his wife, “Respect me, woman!“ This husband is not God. He has no right to make that statement. His focus needs to be on his responsibility to love his wife. This is about who God calls him to be. End of story.

I say at our conferences, “Any husband here who tells his wife she must respect him is neither loving nor honorable.” However, abusive husbands do not listen. Instead, they look for ways to use the Word of God against their wives. In turn, some of these wives blame the message as enabling abuse instead of acknowledging that abusive men will even use the Word of God to advance their narcissism. Satan quoted Scripture to Jesus to achieve evil ends (Matthew 4:5-6).

Here is the fact: This message in Love & Respect places husbands at a crossroads. Will they choose to be honorable men who love their wives or dishonorable men who choose to be harsh and hateful?

The Word of God puts all of us in a position to decide who we will serve: our holy God or our hedonistic selves.

As for Wives

As well, the Love and Respect message enables wives to choose to trust and obey God's command to respect their husbands (Ephesians 5:33; 1 Peter 3:1-2) as a demonstration of their love and reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21-22). The wife can choose to obey what Paul wrote in 5:21-22 about doing this "as to the Lord" or choose to not do this "as to the Lord."

Many wives focus on their side of Ephesians 5:33, which is God‘s command to respect their husbands, and they stay on their side of the verse. This is about doing what God calls them to do. They do not focus on what their husband is supposed to do. That is God’s command to a husband, though in humility she can express her need.

But there’s another side to all of this that is ungodly. Indeed, Ephesians 5:33 brings every wife to a crossroads. Discouragingly, some women make a choice to distrust and disobey God's command. This is evidenced by their judgmental and contemptuous treatment of their husbands. They decide to be irreverent and unloving toward Christ. They choose against God’s revelation in Ephesians 5:33 to put on a respectful demeanor. These wives claim victimhood when they know in their situation their husbands are men of goodwill and seek to do God’s will. 

One wife claimed her husband controlled her and treated her like a doormat. I had to ask for specifics. He had gently told her she should not spend $24,000 a year on clothing. Some wives are adept at generalizing in the worst of terms that their husbands are abusive, but when the specific conflict is explained, the facts tell a completely different story. But few are asked to give the specifics. They only need say, “My husband is abusive. He controls me. I have no say. I have no rights. He suffocates me. It is his way, not my way.” Other women chime in, “Divorce him! You don’t deserve this treatment.” But who finds out that these descriptors actually apply to a husband strongly urging his wife not to spend $24,000 a year on new clothes? This conversation was about stewardship and had nothing to do with abuse.

Sadly, these wives jump over to the other side of the verse in Ephesians 5:33 and point their fingers at their husbands for not loving them. They do so by shaming their husbands (Proverbs 12:4) rather than pointing a finger at themselves for not respecting the likeness of God in their men. They refuse to separate the image of God in their husbands from the shortcomings in these males. This justifies their chronic default reaction of anger, contention, coercion, and disrespect (Proverbs 21:19). This is what verbally and emotionally abusive wives do, but few call it disobedience, transgression, lawlessness, or sin.

It is not for the wife to command her husband, “Love me, you jerk!“ This wife is not God, just as we said the husband is not God. She has no right to make that statement, as we said husbands have no right to make such statements. Her focus needs to be on her responsibility to respect as God instructs, as he needs to be focused on his responsibility to love. This is about who God calls her to be. 

This message in Love & Respect places wives at a crossroads. Will they choose to be loving women who show unconditional positive regard toward the spirit of their husbands while confronting unrespectable behavior? Or, will they be women who choose to be self-righteous, judgmental, and contemptuous toward him as a human being created in God’s image?

The Lord Himself puts all of us in a position to decide how we will respond to His revelation in Ephesians 5:33.

A caveat is in order here. We are talking about a wife's personal choices to trust and obey, or to distrust and disobey. We are not talking about her staying in a dangerous marriage where her husband chooses to disobey and threatens her with violence. If in harm’s way, she needs to leave (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). My mom left my dad for five years for that very reason.

At the end of our live conferences, we call husbands forward to love their wives as they love Jesus Christ and for wives to put on a respectful demeanor in navigating their relationship with their husbands doing so because they revere Christ.

Averaging 1,800 people at our conferences for years, it seemed like the majority came forward, but there were usually a few who remained in the pew. They held tight to their belief that their spouse was the problem and needed to be the one who did all the changing. Instead of putting a stake in the ground and doing this unto Christ, regardless of their spouse, they came to that crossroads and said, "I will blame my spouse even more from here on out. I will use Ephesians 5:33 to verbally club and shame them for not loving/respecting me. They are the problem and I will verbally abuse them with this information."

Though they hear Joshua 24:15, "choose for yourselves today whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” tragically, they choose against the Lord. 

They stopped singing “Trust and Obey.”