The 5:25 Call: God's Design for Husbands

By Mitch Luse

In The 5:25 Call, Mitch Luse explores God's original design for husbands, which has been broken and distorted beyond recognition. But there is hope because Jesus came not only to restore humankind to Himself, but also to restore men and women back to each other. Jesus invites husbands everywhere to break free from cycles of brokenness, and to step into His original intent for manhood and marriage by taking up His call in Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."

The 5:25 call is an invitation for husbands to be empowered and transformed into the men God has called them to be. Are you ready to answer the call?


Includes Prayer Guide & Reflection Questions!

A Prayer Guide and Reflection Questions are provided for use in small groups or personal application. Readers can utilize the Prayer Guide and Reflection Questions to find personal healing and transformation through reflection, discussion, repentance, and listening prayer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781735514215

Book preview

Notes

Introduction

Marriage is the beautiful design of the Almighty,

a great and sacred mystery—meant to be a vivid

example of Christ and his church.

—EPHESIANS 5:32, TPT

The words on the pages of The 5:25 Call carry the themes that God has written on my heart about being a godly husband. With the gentle yet decisive strokes of His pen, the Holy Spirit has overwritten the story of my life’s wanderings with His kindness, and along the way, I believe He has shared with me part of His heart for marriage and given me something to say to husbands.

While these chapters are authentic to my heart, they also carry timeless treasures found in Jesus and throughout the Bible. These treasures are centered around the profound mystery of marriage mentioned in the fifth chapter of Ephesians:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

—EPHESIANS 5:31–32

For husbands, specifically, this mystery is inseparably linked to Jesus’ example mentioned in Ephesians 5:25:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Mysteries in the kingdom are like gifts from God that He wants us to unwrap. They are seeds of revelation and truth buried in symbolism, metaphor, and story. Jesus often spoke in parables and mysteries, using His creation to teach us about Himself and His kingdom. He told us stories about mixing yeast into batches of dough, planting the smallest mustard seed that became the largest plant, and a bright-eyed person who sold everything to obtain a pearl of great price. Each of these mysteries carry truths that were hidden since the creation of the world (Matt. 13:35). It is our honor, privilege, and responsibility to unwrap the gift of God’s truth for ourselves. As Proverbs says, it is the glory of kings to search out what God has hidden (25:2).

Many of us are content to leave as a mystery God’s view of marriage and the role of husband. We thank Him for the gift, but we fail to unwrap or understand what it is that He has given us. Like a toddler playing with the wrapping paper rather than the gift itself, we fail to go beyond a surface understanding of God’s goodness and intimate involvement in our lives. Many of us have missed our Father’s heart, and we live in ignorance of the divine and holy gift that marriage really is.

The goal of this book is to unwrap God’s view of marriage and God’s design for husbands. This priceless gem is found in the text of Ephesians 5, but its themes are woven throughout God’s story in the Bible. While there’s been much study, discussion, and even debate on the topic of the relationship of man and woman, I believe one very important thing has been largely missing from the conversation: the heart of Jesus the Bridegroom for His bride, the church. To understand men and women, husbands and wives, and the mystery of marriage, the heart of Jesus, our Creator and Designer, must be central.

As a husband and a follower of Jesus, I am inviting men and husbands to lay aside the wrapping paper of cultural norms and take hold of the gift of marriage and our roles as husbands in it. Let’s dive into Jesus and His story to discover who He is and who He has created us to be. Through the following chapters, the reflection questions provided at the end of each chapter, and the prayer guide at the end of this book, I invite you to join me in discovering the 5:25 call, God’s design for marriage and our role as husbands.

Holy Spirit, I pray that You would touch each reader with transformational power to the glory of Jesus.

Thank you for joining me through the pages of this book.

—MITCH LUSE

CHAPTER 1

In the Beginning

In the beginning God created

the heavens and the earth.

—GENESIS 1:1

Our earthen vessels come to attention at the sound of those three words: In the beginning…. They call our clay-borne beings back to the earliest moments of humanity. In the beginning God began creating and revealing a great work, one which He prepared before the foundations of the world. Like the first colors exploding on a new canvas, He began creating the heavens and the earth.

Out of His heart His mouth speaks, and into the darkness His voice resounds: Light, be! (See Genesis 1:3). The volume of our world’s existence cracked open as the great Author began telling our story. But just as with any work of art, the Artist’s own story is revealed through His creation. When God began writing humankind’s story, He also left an indelible mark of His own story and His own heart—for the stories are connected.

Centuries later, this same Creator who spoke the world into existence entered the canvas of His creation. All things were made through Him yet He became flesh and made His dwelling among us (John 1:3,17). This Word is the expression of God’s heart to humankind. He is the light that shines in the darkness, and all of creation points to Him. He is the living Word of God, and His name is Jesus.

Through Jesus, God created and created and created. Without even sleeping, He spoke all manner of things into existence. He created a universe of matter and music, of color and light. He spoke into being a creation that had never existed before—except within His heart. First, He set the scene with broad brushstrokes: He created day and night, water and sky, land and sea. And on the third day, He reflected and shared His own thoughts about His creation: it was good. The stage was set, and the foundational elements were in place.

His work continued with life and energy continually bursting forth. The aliveness of His creation kept exceeding itself. During the day, under the sky, beside the sea, and on the land He continued. Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds (Gen. 1:11). And it was so. And it was good.

Against the sky He mounted planets and stars to distinguish between day and night, markers of times and seasons. It was so. And it was good. What He speaks happens. What He does is good.

Vitality flooded the sea, air, and land as God invented living creatures: first the birds for the sky and the fish for the sea. Then on the land, God created living creatures of all kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals (Gen. 1:24). Each of the living things had their own kind, a family they belonged to. Each had a match or a counterpart. And it was good.

Then the sun rose on the sixth day. It was a special and unique day, set apart even among the first days of creation. On this day, the heart of the Author would be displayed in a unique way as He introduced the story’s main characters. Jesus was about to unveil a new type of creature into His creation, and with it He would be revealing part of His own story as well—because this new creation was made to be with Him, to be of His own kind, to be in His family.

THE FIRST HUMAN

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground.

—GENESIS 2:7

The Hebrew word used when God created man is yatsar, and it means to make, form, or fashion something. It’s the same word used to describe how a potter forms clay.¹ Like a master potter, Jesus crafted the image of Himself within this progenitor of the human race.

In an astonishing act, He set the human apart from the other creatures by breathing His own breath of life into the human’s nostrils, and the man became a living being (Gen. 2:7). Earth and Spirit collided in the hands of the Creator to form this new creature, a new kind that had never been seen before. And He brought the human from his humble, earthy beginnings into a garden called Eden. It was a place full of delight, vibrant life, and the wonderful presence of the Creator.

As He had done before, God appraised His creation on the sixth day, but on this day something was different. Something was unfinished—the human was alone. And when God observed the man’s aloneness, He stated outright, It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). Those words still reverberate through creation today, reminding us that in God’s appraisal it is not good that there was only one solitary human. It is not good for man to be without his counterpart.

When God gave this surprising appraisal, I can imagine the bewilderment of the angels standing by, perplexed and confused as to what could possibly be not good in God’s creation. But the Creator was not troubled by His assessment, for he already had in mind what he was going to do (John 6:6): I will make a helper suitable for him (Gen. 2:18).

And with this sudden plot twist, the Author strategically placed a hitch in His story line, an unprecedented change that further emphasized the importance of what was about to happen. The presenting problem of man’s aloneness would be the frame through which God would share a greater depth of His heart and reveal His own precious pearl of great price.

AN UNEXPECTED SOLUTION

In a profound foreshadowing of the One to come, the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh (Gen. 2:21). As if under anesthesia, the man laid lifeless on the dust he came from while the Author conducted the operation. The Author removed a part of the man’s side from his body and then closed it again with flesh. God’s solution to man’s aloneness required the man to give up part of himself. It was as if He was causing the man’s physical body to reflect his emotional aloneness, trueing up his body to his heart. Not only did the man feel incomplete without a counterpart, but his own body was also experiencing the pangs of lack and loss.

From this