![[Photo of a Scripture verse]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/Ephesians_5_25.jpg)
| “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.” |
| —Ephesians 5:25-26 |
Today we give special recognition to fathers. While some will say this is only a holiday to promote greeting cards and telephone calls, the fact remains that we owe a great deal to our fathers. This is particularly true if our dads were godly men who raised us to love and follow Jesus.
Of course, not all fathers were honorable. Some of you reading this may well have had a dad that was the exception to the rule. Instead of a loving, caring self-sacrificing individual, your dad was harsh, cruel, or even abusive. My heart aches for you. I hope you will remember on this Father’s Day that you have a heavenly Father who loves you with His immense, unfailing, unconditional love. He is your true Father.
For the rest of us who did have decent dads, I want to assert that the first step in becoming a proper father is for that man to love his wife. In fact, the Apostle Paul, who, like me, had never had the privilege of being a dad, gave some very profound and wise advice to the early Christians. Notice what Paul wrote, as recorded in Ephesians 5:25-26:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.
Paul strongly urges fathers to love their wives with the same kind of devotion that the Lord Jesus Christ showed to His Body, the Church. This is literally a self-sacrificing, compassionate love that always has the best interests of the beloved at the forefront of one’s thinking.
This new day, even as we say a well-deserved “Thank You!” to our dads, let’s remember to follow Paul’s advice.
As husbands, and particularly as fathers, let’s determine to love our wives with the same commitment that our Savior showed to those who belonged to Him. This is the first step toward becoming a proper father.
