Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [Matthew 6:9-13]
Holy Spirit Paul wrote: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it. [Ephesians 5:25] So to be the husband I should be, I need wisdom in how Christ loved the church. I know Christ chose His disciples very carefully and built them up to face a world that would eventually kill most of them. He showed mercy, grace, wisdom and tenderness to the woman found in adultery, the woman who washed his feet with her hair, the woman at the well in Samaria, to Mary and Elizabeth both when at their house and when Lazarus passed away. I know that He wept over Jerusalem, and that He performed many miracles during His three-year ministry. I also understand He willingly laid down His life so that we could have eternal
life through salvation. The largest and most significant thing about Christ’s love—He wanted a relationship that was built on trust, hope, and love that would become intimate and unwaveringly loyal. Help me to learn to immolate this above all.
For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen me with power through His Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within me, to Him be glory, Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21