No man likes to lose at ANYTHING. Especially, we don’t want to fail our wives and kids. Despite loud cries to the contrary in our culture, we men are assigned the position of head of our marriage, which means if we love our wives well, they will flourish. As those assigned the role of father, our concrete love for our kids is designed to prepare them to see and welcome the parallel but invisible love of God the Father. This strategic position means we must win the battle to defeat our own selfishness, building a pattern of denying ourselves to meet the needs of our wife and children. This episode examines how it is that we daily tap into the power of Christ in us to overcome our default self-preoccupation, learn to die to ourselves, and better focus on meeting the needs of others, not only loving well the wife and kids we cherish but showing Christ’s love to those God has placed around us.
Let's take a big picture, biblical look at this calling to love. One of the foundational doctrines of Christianity is that humans are created as the image-bearers of God. When we realize that God, himself, exists as three persons who love each other, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we understand why John would say that God IS love. The most significant way to image (and honor) HIM is to love. This creational capacity to love matches Jesus’ description of the two greatest commandments, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” Humans are gloriously designed with a capacity to LOVE.
But the Bible teaches that humans, in their rebellion, remain glorious. But we are a glorious ruin. Our capacity to love has become corrupted. We put loving OURSEVES ahead of loving OTHERS. SELF-LOVE prevails over OTHER-LOVE. We were created to love God first and then our neighbor as ourselves. What is RUINED is that we prioritize self-love over other-love. (Parenthetically by self-love, I don’t mean a healthy self-respect, inner confidence, or good boundaries. I mean SELFISHNESS.) The great theologian, Augustine pointed out that the moral cancer of sin, which corrupts the human heart, is a disordering of OUR LOVES. It is fine to love our work, but when we love our work ahead of our families, work becomes an idol. It is okay to love affirmation, but when we love pleasing others more than we love pleasing God, we sin. Augustine describes the extremes of sinful selfishness in contrast to holiness this way: Sin is “the love of SELF to the contempt of GOD.” Holiness is “the love of GOD to the contempt of SELF.” Contempt of self sounds a bit severe, and it is. Nevertheless, it is Augustine’s way of stating what Jesus said in Luke 9, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it" (vs 23-24).
Overcoming our default attitude of putting self-love first is the essence of learning to love others. As you know, the biblical view of marriage calls us to the mind-boggling challenge of loving our brides the way Jesus loved his. Doesn’t Paul realize how subtly and easily our default sinful nature puts my focus on what I need in a mate—one who doesn’t nag me, who doesn’t cramp my style, who is beautiful enough to excite me, gifted enough to help me accomplish my goals, sexually responsive enough to satisfy me on my timetable, who accepts me as I am and who fits well into my world. My anger and resentment towards my wife when she doesn’t meet this standard betrays the fact that I, too often, view marriage just like the world does. As one study found,
Both men and women today want a marriage in which they can receive emotional and sexual satisfaction from someone who will simply let them “be themselves.” They want a spouse who is fun, intellectually stimulating, sexually attractive, with many common interests, and who, on top of it all, is supportive of their personal goals and of the way they are living now. (Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage).
In Ephesians 5, Paul calls Christian husbands to a radically different view of marriage. In short, we are to see it as Christ’s call to sacrifice. The word he uses for love is AGAPE, the word for sacrificial love. A useful definition of AGAPE is “sacrificing whatever is necessary to meet the needs of another.” John uses this word in his gospel to describe God’s love for the world (John 3:16). “For God so loved (agaped) the world, that he gave his only Son (sacrificing what is dearest to him), that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (our need for a savior is met).
To love our wives as Christ loved the church means sacrificing whatever is necessary to meet her needs. Most men have a common grace understanding of this calling to die. We would take a bullet to protect our wives and kids. Men tend to be great at the HEROIC. When it comes to the MUNDANE, however, saying “no” to ourselves on a daily basis in the little things, our sinful nature comes out. Agape love requires death to ourselves—our interests, preferences, comforts, rights, appetites, preferences—when necessary to meet another’s needs. It is costly love that flows from a willingness to follow the example of Jesus, as he pointed out in Luke 9, of dying to ourselves.
FIVE WAYS TO OVERCOME SELFISHNESS TO LOVE OTHERS WELL
A. Keep our love tank filled. The message of Christianity is that we can’t consistently put the love of God and others ahead of love for ourselves in our own strength. The only human to have ever done that was Jesus. Jesus had his loves ORDERED rightly. Out of supreme love for the Father, Jesus said, “Not my will but yours be done” and went to the cross. When it came to love for others, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friend,” and then did that. God’s plan is to restore us to our creation calling of loves ordered properly, i.e., making the love of God and our neighbor the priority over self-preoccupation. (If you wonder how severe the disease of self-preoccupation is, consider this question. If you are handed a group picture with you in it, where do your eyes go first? To OURSEVES, hoping it is a good picture of us!) Loving others is the first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Scripture. Jesus told us that the spiritual fruit of godly heart attitudes can only be restored in us through abiding in him.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5).
To abide in Christ means to abide in his love, as Jesus said four verses later. The truth is that you and I, because we have been appointed to love and lead our homes and churches, must constantly replenish our spiritual/emotional tank in order to keep giving love to others. But let’s consider a major gas cap that prevents God from refueling our hearts with his love. OUR SIN. We know that our obedience pleases God as it does all fathers. Messing up displeases him; so, we feel ashamed. David, after committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband, Uriah, experiences this self-loathing shame,
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight….Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities…Cast me not away from your presence… Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit (Ps 51:4, 9-12).
Remember that a primary strategy of Satan, your opponent, is to heap so much shame on you that you feel too dirty for a Holy God to want anything to do with you. But if you are in Christ, that is a lie. Do not let him lead you to despise the BLOOD OF JESUS shed for your sin. It is ENOUGH. God, like the prodigal’s father, is always prepared to run to you, throw his arms around you, and restore you fully as his child. The ESV text notes point out, “The father cast aside all behavioral conventions of the time, as running was considered to be undignified for an older person, especially a wealthy landowner such as this man.” The father does NOT CARE. All he cares about is his son coming home! Sometimes we need help getting the truth of God’s unconditional love and delight for us from our heads into our hearts. That need makes me think of the story of Maria.
“Maria knew exactly what her fifteen-year-old daughter, Christiana, would have to do for a living if she ever ran away from her village to the city. That is why her heart broke when she awoke one morning to find her daughter’s bed empty. Maria knew immediately where her daughter had gone and what she must do to find her. She threw some clothes in a bag, gathered all her money, and bought a bus ticket for Rio de Janeiro. She stopped by the drugstore to take as many pictures of herself as she could afford.”
“Maria visited every hotel night-club, or bar where prostitutes hung out. At each place she left her picture—taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. On the back of each photo she wrote a note. But before long, Maria was out of photos and money. So, broken hearted, she returned home.”
“A few weeks later, Christiana descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her big brown eyes no longer danced with the laughter of youth, but spoke of pain and fear. Her dream had become a nightmare. She longed to trade these countless beds for the secure pallet of her bedroom at home. But the little village was in too many ways too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christiana’s eyes blurred with tears as she crossed the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation: ‘Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.’ She did” (Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him Savior).
B. The second way to overcome our self-preoccupation and love others well is to ask God to take care of every detail of our needs and trust him to do so. In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches that Kingdom heart attitudes cannot prevail in us if we are preoccupied with earthly treasure, with what we are going to eat or drink or wear. The answer to these concerns, which preoccupy any healthy human, is not to suppress them. Rather, it is turning those anxieties into prayer. Do not be anxious about anything, writes Paul, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7). In my life a key principle for temporarily denying myself to give sacrificially to serve another is confidence that God has my needs covered—I don’t need to be preoccupied with them. God is better at providing my needs than I am, anyway. This is crucial. Sacrificial love does not require denying that I have needs. That is unhealthy codependency, allowing myself to be taken advantage of, abused because I have so little value that my needs don’t matter. Yes, they do. Loving others never says your needs don’t matter. Denying myself is denying the self-love that elevates MY needs over those of others, which I am only able to do because I know God has my back.
Notice also that the peace of God in this Philippians text is not promised to those who just have a HEART trust in God to meet their needs. Peace is promised to those who specifically tell God what they need. JB Phillips puts it. Don’t worry over anything whatever. Tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and tankful prayer and the peace of God which transcends understanding will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.
C. The third way to overcome selfishness and love others well is by self-control—cultivating the ability to say “no” to self, in order to say, “yes” to God. We KNOW it is God’s will to give us the power to do this for two reasons. First, Jesus promised, “If you abide in me, and MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much.” Scriptire identifies self-control as one of the fruits of the Spirit, so we KNOW it is God’s will to produce it. Second, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” So, we know from this portion of God’s Word that his will is for us to deny “SELF.” In addition, we have the promise of God, articulated by Paul, I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Phil 4:13).
God loves to hear us ask for help in loving others. Just last week I saw God answer three simple, everyday requests for his help:
- I asked for wisdom for how to handle a delicate situation with one of my kids and God answered it by one of my battle buddies saying, “just treat the person and the situation the way you normally would.” Maybe obvious, but to me it was clear direction.
- I asked for help putting my nervousness about speaking out of my mind at a steak and shoot event at which I spoke last weekend, and God answered.
- A guest and wife were attending a church where I was speaking, and I asked for wisdom about what would make them feel most comfortable, sitting with me up front or in the back, where they were less noticeable. God orchestrated it so that upfront with me was clear.
D. The fourth requirement for overcoming selfishness and loving well is seeing what other’s needs are. Loving a person well requires building other, prior virtues like attentiveness and discernment. Agape love is sacrificially giving to another’s needs, so it requires knowing what the loved one’s needs really are. This principle is seen in Paul’s prayer for the Philippian Christians, And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment (1:9).
One of the motivations for spending time in God’s Word is to understand life, which gives wisdom to enable us to love better. David prayed, Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts (Ps 119:97-100).
Here is a list I have compiled over the years, of a wife’s needs:
- To know God's love for her (strengthened with power to know how wide and deep and long and high is the love of God for HER--Eph 3)
- Emotional intimacy with you (connecting at the level of the heart)
- Partnership with you on the home front
- Spiritual intimacy with you, her spiritual leader
- Specific words of affirmation from you
- Romance (which to her is making her feel like a princess)
- Female friends
- Protection and rest
- A secure home and secure finances
When it comes to understanding what our wife needs, I do want to address a particularly discouraging situation for husbands--the impossibility of ever fully understanding your wife’s needs. Many, many husbands find it discouraging to sacrifice, suck it up to do what they think their wife wants or needs, only to find out they were completely wrong. God made them COMPLICATED. I guess we need to adopt the famous attitude of Thomas Edison when he failed again in his effort to create the electric light bulb. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” I now have one more misunderstanding of what she needs!
Here is a list of what each of our children needs for a loving relationship with us:
- Understanding (John 1:14).
- Affirmation (Matt 3:17).
- Companionship (Mark 3:14).
- Compassion (Mark 1:40-42).
- Affection (Luke 18:155-16).
- Attention to our practical needs (Luke 9:16)
- Spiritual leadership (Eph 6:4).
E. The fifth way to overcome selfishness to love others well is to meditate on the detailed portrait of love, which God in 1 Corinthians 13.
- Love is patient: Impatience with others wounds their tender self-esteem.
- Love is kind: Kindness is proactive thoughtful attentiveness to another’s need.
- Love does not envy: Envy is rooted in insecurity and feels displeasure at the success of a rival. It is evil self-centeredness.
- Love does not boast: It ruthlessly detects and eliminates subtle comments towards others that are calculated to impress.
- Love is not arrogant: It does not cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
- Love is not rude. It treats others with respect by showing good manners.
- Love does not insist on its own way. In humility, it listens to those with other opinions. In meekness, it does not demand its rights, but sacrifices them.
- Love is not irritable. It overlooks the minor wounds cause to us by others. It takes seriously the way sin has all of us in this fallen world.
- Love is not resentful. It is quick to forgive when hurt by others, even if the wound hurting them is not repented of.
- Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing. Caring for someone never means compromising with sin. It is never loving to meet needs by doing wrong.
- Love rejoices with the truth. It moves towards transparency as trust in the relationship is built. It does not lie to cover shame.
- Love bears all things. It does not keep an account of evil. It is not conditional. Another’s sin against us causes us to love them MORE. Wounded people wound people.
- Love believes all things. This does not refer to being naïve. It defaults to trusting the motives of another until there is strong evidence not to.
- Love hopes all things. The word hope means expectation and anticipation. Love sees the potential of the other casting a vision for the loved one’s future success.
- Love endures all things. Love never gives up on another. Never. This is love's choice: to give, and give, and give.
The battle we men must fight with our self-preoccupation, pride, and self-centeredness in order to love them well is worth the fight. There is NO gift we could give them that is more precious. “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three,” writes Paul. “but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- What are some of the things that you think blind men to their own self-centeredness?
- How have you seen the action of putting the love of SELF above love for God and others bear destructive fruit?
- Of the five ways we examined to overcome selfishness and sacrificially love others, which is the hardest to do for you? Which is the easiest?
