Being Married is Tough #2 – Owe Each Other

If you are normal you don’t like the thought of owing anyone anything. But, we all need to realize that when we get married we take on a debt to someone else. The crazy thing is that we pay not only them but ourselves. This debt is one of compounding interest and blessings as we live our lives together. In a Tough Marriage we pay this debt. It is because we love each other that we owe each other and always being willing to do what we need to for each other. Paul wrote about this debt in our marriages in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. Let’s look at some of the things he had to say about being tough.

We Owe Each Other Because We Owe Christ

Paul writes in verse 21, “Yield to obey each other because you respect Christ.” To see our marriages as a way for us to repay Christ for his gift of salvation changes how we see this debt. When we do things for each other it is a form of worship for us. It touches God’s heart when we loving pay this debt to each other. Jesus told his followers once that if you give someone a cold drink in my name; it is the same as giving that drink of water. To take care of each other is to take care of Christ. It is our way to show our love for Jesus through our relationship in our marriage.

We Owe Each Other As We Follow Jesus’ Example

The next verses were often talked about when I was a kid growing up around Mother’s day. They were used to make sure women knew their place and that they were more or less second class to their husbands. I’m thinking maybe the church might have missed the point by a little. Paul writes, “Wives, yield to your husbands, as you do to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. As the church yields to Christ so you wives should yield to your husbands in everything.” What does yielding truly mean and why is it the wives job to yield? I have a feeling that the yielding should be a two way interaction. As we take this journey together there will be times that one of us needs to take the lead. It is being smart enough to know when we should yield that truly makes a marriage run smoothly. Yielding to each other is just realizing that when we owe each other we take turns paying and leading on our debt.

Our Debt Helps the Others to Shine

Paul continues his thoughts about our debt by helping us see that when we pay that debt it is truly making their lives better. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it to make it belong to God. Christ used the word to make the church clean by washing it with water. He died so that he could give the church to himself like a bride in all her beauty. He died so that the church could be pure and without fault, with no evil or sin or any other wrong thing in it. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hates his own body, but feeds and takes care of it. And that is what Christ does for the church, because we are parts of his body.” Ephesians 5:25-30 (NCV) As we yield to each other and work on our relationship we help each other grow closer to what God intended our lives to look like. We get the chance to help someone else to shine and to become more like Christ in our love for each other.

The Mystery is That When I do for Them, I’m Doing for Me

“The Scripture says, “So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.“ That secret is very important—I am talking about Christ and the church. But each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and a wife must respect her husband.” Ephesians 5:31-33 (NCV) When we join our lives with someone else it is a gift for both of us. As we draw closer to them we are making ourselves better.

A marriage where two people owe each other and work hard to pay that debt off every day is a marriage that will be tough enough to survive whatever comes at it. How would our lives together be different if we kept working to pay this debt off? If we quit worrying about what we are owed and just worry about what we owe our marriages would be changed into the image of what God dreamed it could be.