Ephesians 5:25 (Protection)
HOW MEN SHOULD TREAT WOMEN
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
Men, are you struggling trying to figure out women? Desperate for answers? Frustrated? Hopeless? Feel like giving up?
Don’t worry! You’re not alone.
But rather than overwhelm you with a list of common-sense, self-help principles which only make you feel like an idiot for not knowing them in the first place, let me save you time, energy and resources and focus your attention on the most important thing to remember when it comes to knowing how to treat a woman.
“HOW MEN SHOULD TREAT WOMEN” rests on one foundational principle:
PROTECTION!
Now common sense says if someone breaks into your house and tries to hurt your family, you “man up” and do whatever it takes to serve and protect them from danger. However, is PROTECTION merely a physical responsibility and that’s it?
The truth of the matter is PROTECTION is far more emotional, psychological and spiritual than physical. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still your duty as a man to change a flat tire, fix the toilet, kill all bugs, and get out of bed in the middle of the night to figure out what “noise” she heard, but those “manly” functions barely scratch the surface of what PROTECTION entails.
EXAMPLE:
Most people are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and recall Eve’s foolish decision to disobey God’s command by believing the serpent’s lie and eating the forbidden fruit.
However, did you know when God gave His famous, “Don’t do this!” speech, Eve was not present? In fact, she hadn’t even been created at that point!
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’” (Genesis 2:15–18).
So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man’” (Genesis 2:21–23).
I dare say almost none of us knew Eve was NOT present when that speech was given. How then would she have known which tree was off-limits in the first place? Verses 21-23 come AFTER verses 15-18. Therefore, there can be only one clear takeaway we need to glean from this text.
Bottom-line: Adam failed to protect his wife.
Adam and Eve represent the first marriage in God’s Creation and God expected Adam to love his wife by looking out for her best interest at all times. Adam knew the rules. God gave them to him point blank, but somewhere along the line he failed to fulfill his husbandly duty by not merely protecting Eve physically from the serpent, but guarding her heart and mind spiritually by ensuring she knew the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6).
Keep in mind, Adam’s failure does not justify Eve’s behavior in any way or blame-shift her decision to sin on Adam. She owns her decision. Rather, we must recognize that BOTH SINNED and had to accept the consequence of their actions.
However, rather than focus our attention on Eve’s poor decision, our goal as men is to learn what Adam could have done differently and apply that wisdom so we do not make the same mistake, which requires intentional effort, discipline and commitment to grow spiritually ourselves.
APPLICATION:
In my men’s survival curriculum entitled, “WILDERNESS SURVIVAL, Vol-1 & Vol-2” which collectively studies 40 different topics every man struggles with in his life and marriage, the following question is listed under Week #4: Spiritual Warfare:
Genesis 3 magnifies Adam’s greatest sin as a husband by how he failed to protect his wife. Where in your life do you struggle protecting your wife from spiritual warfare? (WILDERNESS SURVIVAL, Vol-1)
As I stated in my last blog post, WHY MEN GOTTA BE GREAT, it is sobering when you realize being a Godly man is far more difficult than you’d hoped.
It is easy to camp out in the “I protect my family by providing for them” mindset, but that excuse is nothing more than poor justification in order to sidestep personal responsibility when it comes to PROTECTION.
Yes, provision is important and Scripture is clear on that fact (1 Timothy 5:8), but being a spiritual leader means leading by example which encompasses thoughts and actions, first in our own hearts and then in the hearts of our loved ones.
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3–5).
The key is washing our minds with the absolute truth of God’s Wisdom each day. That may sound too easy a recipe for success, but is it really that difficult to comprehend?
Every day we choose to feed our minds with news headlines, social media, music, sports, entertainment, etc. We remember far more useless information than we care to admit which often affects our mood, attitudes and perspective, so why wouldn’t the same logic hold true if we immerse our minds in the Bible each day? Could we not align our personal will with God if we so desired?
Far too many of us check out early in the WILDERNESS SURVIVAL process by not reconciling demons we hold onto. We’d rather hold onto what is destructive because it’s comfortable and familiar rather than swim in the ocean of fear and uncertainty where change takes place.
Perhaps we would be best suited to learn from Jesus’ example when He endured 40-days of fasting AFTER being baptized and BEFORE beginning His public ministry.
Immediately after being baptized by John, Scripture details what happened next which should encourage us to man up and take the WILDERNESS SURVIVAL challenge.
The Baptism of Jesus: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.” (Matthew 3:13).
The Temptation of Jesus: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry” (Matthew 4:1–2).
The Ministry of Jesus: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
In other words, Jesus chose to make His faith public but immediately endured an intense period of spiritual warfare BEFORE putting his faith into practice.
What enabled Him to ensure spiritual warfare, though, and come away victorious was His ability to guard Himself by using His knowledge of Scripture to defeat the enemy.
However, we need to check ourselves if we think we can inflate our minds with knowledge and neglect applying what we learn.
One of the enemy’s greatest weapons is baiting us into thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. Pride will crush a man’s ability to protect himself let alone the ones he loves, so we cannot merely read God’s Word and leave it at that. We must practice what we preach!
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like” (James 1:22–24).
HOW MEN SHOULD TREAT WOMEN begins and ends with PROTECTION.
It’s as simple as that. However, you cannot adequately guard your heart by yourself. You need help! And a smart man is willing to seek wise counsel and more importantly, ask God for it and be willing to do what He says when He answers your prayer.
BOTTOM-LINE:
As I stated in my last blog post, WHY MEN GOTTA BE GREAT, you can’t lead your family spiritually if you’re not living according to God’s Word personally, and you’ll never meet your wife’s emotional needs if you’re not humbled by the conviction of the Holy Spirit at work in your heart.
Success begins and ends with surrender to God’s will, obedience to His Word, and submission to His authority in your heart, first and foremost, so you can minister to your wife.
The problem is we love ourselves more than anyone else, so dying to self takes an immeasurable amount of faith, discipline, and fortitude. The more piercing question you must ask yourself is whether you’re willing to deny yourself in order to protect your wife, fiancé, or girlfriend the way she deserves to be treated.
Yes, love her, treat her with respect, honor and cherish her, but don’t waste your time checking boxes without ensuring you have protected your heart emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually so you can protect hers the same way.
PROTECTION is the gateway to trust in a relationship built to endure the storms of life and test of time, and a woman will doubt every behavioral attempt you make to meet her needs if you’re letting your moral guard down by allowing your heart and mind to drift away toward fleshly desires.
“There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16–19).
So how will you respond? Will you take a step back and evaluate PROTECTION from a different lens or dismiss it altogether?
The woman you love is waiting for an answer. And based on your actions to date, she probably already knows where you stand unless you’re willing to humble yourself, repent of your mistakes, and seek help from the only one powerful enough to transform your heart: Jesus.
The choice is yours.
MEN: Want to become a better spiritual leader but don’t know where to start? Consider this transformational, men’s Bible study curriculum, WILDERNESS SURVIVAL Vol-1 & Vol-2, by clicking on the images above. Discover the answers you’ve been looking for once and for all by studying 40 different issues every man struggles with in his life and marriage. It is not like any men’s study you’ve ever experienced!