Ephesians 5:33 (Berean Study Bible) – Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
The love word is Agape. Strong’s definition of that word is
To love, wish well to, take pleasure in, long for; denotes the love of reason, esteem. Perhaps from agan; to love.
This is the unconditional love that is not based on our feelings. Instead, it is the love that our feelings are conditioned to fall in line with. The only person that we can naturally love like that is our self. That is why Paul sets the love of our self as the standard. How do I use my reason to love myself? As I am going through life, I don’t mindlessly do what feels natural all the time. I do give myself grace and favour a lot though. When I screw up, I forgive myself and determine to do better. When I feel particularly down and that life has treated me unfairly, I don’t normally second guess giving myself comfort food or going to bed earlier. However, I also don’t settle for living in the moment or applying any set of assumptions or beliefs to govern myself without also testing to see if those assumptions or beliefs seem to reflect my experience in the long run. I don’t hold myself to a standard that seems impossible or determine for myself to always do something that seems good but goes against how I feel I am wired in a good way. In short, I reason through how to treat myself and reflect on my past reasoning. I take initiative to do this reflection process. I don’t assume that my true feelings are obvious. I don’t simply take my initial reaction as the truth about who I am, how I am or what is happening to me. Just because I don’t give my initial feeling the final word doesn’t mean that I don’t value my initial feeling at all however. I am considerate and thoughtful about myself.
How to love someone else as myself based on this Agape love is not immediately obvious. It doesn’t come easily to love ones self this way but nobody needs it explained to them why the work is worth it. Loving someone else this way requires both an understanding of the healthy way love like this as well as the reasoning behind the motivation. There is work that is required, skills to be learned, constant effort in self-control/regulation/discipline. Initiative is required outside of the individual moments these love decisions are made. Mostly importantly, God’s love is required. He is the only one that can love like this without expecting anything in return and even not making conditions upon the outcome in order to justify the cost. His Agape Love is incredible. I capitalize Love in my journal when I want to remind myself that God is Love. Love is another one of His names. We know love because we know Love as the person. That is the only way we can even define a love like this. There is no Agape apart from Him. We are all made in God’s image and capable of this kind of love like a balloon is capable of being filled with helium and floating. If we puff ourselves up with air love, we feel big but we don’t float.
The trick then is to meditate on this long and often enough about our spouses needs, desires, beliefs, internal wiring’s, current condition, past experiences etc… just as we would for ourselves both naturally and purposefully. Then we will have a Biblical marriage worth talking about.
Creating For The Kingdom 