Loving Her Like Christ

What kind of husband reshapes a family’s future? We open up about the real work of loving your wife like Christ loves the church—without hooks, without scorecards, and with a willingness to be changed.

We unpack Ephesians 5 with both rigor and warmth, showing how sacrificial love cleanses, nourishes, and helps a woman become radiant. That shift—from loving for what we get to loving for her sake—breaks cycles of bitterness and resets the emotional climate at home. We talk frankly about lust and comparison, why isolation is dangerous, and how a tight “huddle” of brothers who pray and tell the truth can pull you back from the edge.

Across the conversation, we connect marriage to legacy. Sons learn how to honor a woman by watching their dad. Daughters learn what to expect from the men they choose. Even if your story includes failure or distance, the path forward is clear: return to God’s Word daily, confess quickly, pursue intentionally, and guard the covenant you’re in.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help more families find their footing. Then tell us: what’s one small, faithful step you’ll take to cherish your spouse this week?

Visit www.thefatherdifference.com/links for a free book download and information about personal coaching.

Support our ministry by checking out the donation link here!
https://www.thefatherdifference.com/donate

Transcript

Mission And Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:57

What kind of father do you want to be? What kind of man do you want to become for your family and for yourself? If you've ever wondered how to step into the fullness of your role as a father, husband, and man of God, then you're in the right place. Here at the Father Difference, our mission is to inspire and equip men to be the best fathers they can be. It's a powerful mission. And today, we're going to explore exactly how you can take steps toward that calling. Whether you're a father, a son, a husband, grandfather, single dad, stepfather, or just looking to grow, I believe God has something powerful for you in today's message. Whether you're tuning in live or watching this later, we are so excited to have you here. If this is what you're looking for, then subscribe so you can tune in each week to the Father Difference Live. You can sign up below. And now your host, a husband, father, grandfather, author, and former NFL player, Pastor Ed McGlass.

Light Banter And Audience Check-In

Setting The Topic: Loving The Girls

Wedding Stories And Early Vows

Father Figures And Missing Models

The Biblical Pattern: Ephesians 5

Sacrificial Love And Holiness

Hooks, Bitterness, And Forgiveness

Cherish Her For Being A Woman

Temptation, Accountability, And Brotherhood

One Flesh And Lifelong Commitment

Pursuit, Dates, And Practical Habits

Modeling Love For Sons And Daughters

Fatherhood Academy And Art Show Invite

Prayer For Marriages

Donation Appeal And Closing

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Hey, hey, hey! Good to see you guys out there today. Well, if you're a Dodger fan, you're like really happy. If you're a Canadian fan of what was that team? Anyway, if you've I became a new baseball fan. I thought football was it. I'm gonna give me a Dodger jersey. I mean, those guys, that was the most unbelievable World Series. And I'm figuring that you're a guy, you probably watch that. Depends on where you're from. But I'd love to see in the chat where you're from, let me know. And let me know on a scale of one to ten. And we won't show this comment. You know, this is just between you and me. Is how's your marriage going? Scale of one to ten, or there's things you want to learn. Maybe you've got a question to unlock the secret to the heart of a woman, and you want to be able to keep it. Well, today, yours truly, who started out with some with some pretty bad examples of uh what a husband is not supposed to do, I learned some powerful things I want to share with you today from the scripture that God's given us that ultimately it's one of the most uh powerful ways you can love yourself is to learn how to love the woman that God's put in your life. And maybe uh it's uh not just the woman, but it's also the girls in your life. Because the heart of your daughters and granddaughters, you can use what we're gonna talk about today to help you in that. You you ready for that? We want to gear this up and really excited about it. I'm gonna get my last little bit of my iced coffee. Perfect. And that is because I get my coffee from Mammoth, California. Best coffee place in the world. I'm not doing a commercial from them, other than that, if you know if you want to you want to get some great coffee, I'll let you know before the end of the show. So let's get busy. Let's get busy today and talk about how to love the girls and your story. And so I'm gonna pull up my outline here. You can follow along with me. Good to see you guys. I'd I'd still love to hear where you're from. Give me a thumbs up if you're if you're grooving and you and you're going, man, my marriage is so powerful. I got things to teach you. But if you're in that place, I'd love to include you in on the show. I'll give you a camera and we can you can help me, I can help you. Got it? Awesome. So here's the first thing. I'm gonna start tell you a little bit about my own story. Well, here I am. Well, actually, there's me playing guitar when my wife is walking down the aisle. I'm singing a song, every little beat of my heart. It was a country song by one of my favorite songwriters, Milton Carroll. Shout out to you, Milton, back there in Tennessee land. And I'm I'm playing the guitar, believe it or not, as my wife is walking down the aisle in front of 550 people. And I mean to tell you, I've never been so nervous at all in my life. And because it's not because I'm, you know, nervous about playing the song. I'm getting ready to make a covenant and commitment before God Himself that I'm gonna love the girl that's gonna walk down that aisle with everything I got. Well, my dad, there's my dad, the Naval Academy, Ed Tandy, the second, my father, who was a fighter pilot, and you've heard about him if you've been around at any time, walking my mom down the aisle underneath the swords after they've gotten married at the Naval Academy Chapel on June week, many, many, many moons ago. And so my my stepdad was you know, my dad was an incredible uh lover of my mom. My mom had pictures of him all over the house, and just but he was killed in action. So she only had a short time with him, and I had no time with him. And I always wondered. I never got to learn from him how to love a girl. I think that's one of the missing pieces that we have as fathers and as men, is when we don't have a dad there to model to us to how to love a girl. Most of the things that are kind of taught to men, or we get kind of stuck in places, it's sort of like a like a joke, right? And guys are, you know, I was in a restaurant not too long ago and and met this guy uh who's who's been married for a long time, not quite as long as me. And I said, So what's your secret? Two words, he said, Yes, dear. I went, oh great. That's really a great thing. So basically, you disagree with your wife and you have a happy life. He goes, No, I just don't know what else to do. If she gets mad at me and I I run away to the garage to my hobbies. Well, God's given us a way to love our wives in such a profound way that it unlocks blessings towards us, blessings to our children, to our sons, to our daughters, to our grandkids. You want to know more? So here we are. Let's let's look at what the Bible says. What does it mean to love your wife as Christ? Love the church. And so here we go. All right. So let me let me start out by asking this question of you. I'd love for you to respond. Is number one is oh great, I got I got a response in Tennessee from one of my brothers. My marriage is going amazing. Yay! All right, we got there. And if it's not going amazing, you can say that too, because there's nothing that a wife loves more than when she knows that her husband admits it's not going that good and he wants help. You can get points from from me, and I'll even get a hold of her to say he's in there, he's working really hard. So let me ask you this question: what if your marriage could reflect the greatest love story ever told? And you don't have to be on the love channel or on you know some movie, you don't need to be on the Hallmark channel to have an amazing connection with a human being who is wired completely differently than you are, and yet inside of her heart and who she is are these incredible promises and secrets that when you learn to unlock them, you will have the biggest fan for the rest of your life. See, one of the things that I love about my wife is that when she's not with me, she's sharing with people that I know and friends of mine of all the things she loves about me. And I mean, I just that blesses me. And she doesn't know they call me and say, I was just with your wife. She couldn't stop telling us how much she loves you and how you've been loving her, that means so much. And so I mean, I got a community uh of people that are like my secret spies, so let me know how I'm doing. And that's awesome because if you know how I started, it didn't start out that way. And here I am, you know, we're brand new, married, you know, and I, you know, I I remember walking down the aisle that day, and I don't know how your wedding was, but I mean, my wife was, you know, dressed to the you know, dressed to the nines, I guess that's to perfection. She's beautiful. She's walking down the aisle. I'm crying, and she's walking there, and and we have our ceremony, and and part of our ceremony, which was so cool to me, was and it really tapped into kind of the way God's wired my wife and I together. My wife was responsible for leading her her her parents and her brothers and sisters to Christ, influenced them, and and all of her friends. She was like an all-in for Jesus person when she got married. I just love that about her. And and so we made a commitment because I had so many of Ram football players there, because I was playing for the Rams at the time, and even the owners of the team were there, and my stepdad and and my and his and my mom, and we started out our wedding ceremony sharing about our faith in Christ. And we shared, Jill shared her testimony, and I shared a short version of mine, and then the pastor who is great friends of ours, you know, said, Is there anybody here who would like to give your life to Jesus today before we start this wedding ceremony? She's walked down the aisle. We stopped our service to share Christ with all my friends. And I remember when I stood up there to my friends, I said, You know, you know, I've been trying to get you in chapel service on the ram since the first day. And since we're in a church, well, and I we had a number of people who raised their hands and said, I want to pray and ask Jesus in my life at our wedding. And I remember one specifically I was fishing for my stepdad. Because I I never heard much about his faith. And he raised his hand to ask Christ in his life. And it was just an incredible thing because it's you know, the the the picture of the wedding that you're in with your wife is is a is also a picture of the final ceremony of our eternity called the wedding supper of the lamb, where the bride of Christ, us, are wed to Jesus for eternity. It's an incredible banquet in there, and so the destination of heaven that we all are, we're gonna have one more incredible ceremony for eternity for all of us who said yes to Jesus and given our lives to him and follow him. And that's by the way, that's the secret of being in a marriage, because for you, my friend, if you're like me, most of us didn't get much of equipment from our stepdads or fathers on how to love a girl. But learning how to love your wife like Christ loved the church, that's where we're gonna turn to, is is absolutely crucial for you learning how to love a girl for the rest of your life. You ready? So here's the scripture in Ephesians 5, 25. It says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. It's interesting, it's right after the scripture we talked about. I talked with the wives last week about you know, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord. And so Paul is is laying out a groundwork for what makes a really healthy, loving, lifelong romance with somebody. And when he speaks to us men, he's saying, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave him so. Well, to the to the listeners that are hearing there, that first century church, and this is the church in Ephesus, they know exactly what he meant because some of them were witnesses to Christ dying on the cross for the sake of his church, the bride of Christ. And so that's a sacrificial love that that God talks about that when you learn how to tap into what the Holy Spirit is teaching you about loving your wife, something happens inside of you as a man, something profoundly begins to reshape those impossible places in your life, and learning how to love a woman who is wired completely different than you are as a man. That he might look what he says, he might sanctify her as cleansing her with the washing by the w of the water by the word of God. Part of that commitment of of loving your wife as Christ loves the church is that you're a you're a truth-teller, and not only a truth-teller, the truth that you you learn and you live in comes out of that time every day when you open this book that you you carry around or on your tablet. It's it's it's the only it's the only hope we have of fulfilling who God's made us to be, is that we gotta have his words in our mind more than what we just think. Because all of us want to be able to say, I did it my way. That was Adam's number the number one hit song at the fall of Adam and Eve is I did it my way. When the devil tempted them, he he wanted to destroy the union and the marriage between Adam and his wife that God brought them both together, so that he could get the offspring and generations after. He would have a legal right because of the sin of Adam and Eve to be able to get our kids. And ultimately, the devil still using the same tactic thousands of years later, because he knows if he can somehow split you up with your wife, he has a big shot at being able to use the hurt and the wounding and the pain of all that to get your kids to destabilize them and to get them out of the church of Jesus. And so, part of you learning to love your wife as Christ loved the church, when you when you truly understand the sacrifice that we got to make and a willingness, God backs us up with his spirit in our life. So he may present might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy without blemish. I mean, imagine we we have the potential of loving our wives in a way that completely unlocks her beauty, unlocks who God has called her to be. And the way we love her, the way the same way that God loves us, it begins to change. It became that marriage. And I remember getting married on my wedding day and walking down the aisle, my wife walking down the aisle, and just before I I went out there, I I asked my stepdad, I said, you know, who's the only father that I knew? Any any pointers on loving a girl? And he actually said, word for word, well, son, oh hell, son, you know, better women are better seen and not heard. It's just drama, drama, drama. And I cannot believe that was his final words as I'm walking out of the church in the pastor's office on the side of the church into the procession with my guitar to play a song to my bride walking down the aisle. And I'm just like, man, what the heck is this? And I gotta tell you, words from even a bad father at the times, and we're not all good dads, you know, there are some negative things my kids have gotten involved in because of the way I've spoken to them, the way I've modeled that. Because I didn't have much of a model from my stepdad on how to love how he loved my mom. My mom was incredibly needy after losing her husband, and he did the an amazing thing by coming in and saying, Hey, I want to, I'm gonna take Ed as my son, too, and have three more children with my mom. But in the midst of their their life and the Navy and all the stuff, he didn't have any skill to stay married. He didn't have he was a sailor at heart. He eventually they divorced and he ended up meeting a gal that he evidently made some huge changes for, and I'm so grateful for that. But as far as me knowing how to be a present husband and to love my wife, I didn't get it much from him. But see, I've learned one thing about following Jesus. It doesn't matter how much we bring to the party, he's gonna bring all the gifts we need, even in those places where we don't have a clue on how to do it. Amen. That's God's promise to us. And so so how did how does this happen? And you know, and what are some things? Well, number one, you know, the first thing to do is to to love your wife without a hook. Husband, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. See, Jesus gave himself up for a church that had never even been born yet, right? The church really didn't start until Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the dead, and the Holy Spirit empowered the church. And so the church wasn't really being the church. It they, you know, the the Jewish temples were still there, but Jesus came to build a whole new organization. He came to redeem his people, but also make a way for you and I to become part of that. And the way he did that is he he did that by sacrificing himself so that we could be forgiven, so that we could know him, so we could be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that we could understand the words of scripture that he gives us and the power that's there. And you know, when you know he says later on in the story greater love is known than. In this, then they laid down one's life for his friends. He's talking about a kind of unconditional love that can pass through you towards your spouse without a hook. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we're really good as human beings at loving those who love us back. And to love people for the sake of something we might receive. You know what I'm talking about? It's very, it's very, you know, it's it's very predictable in the in the early times of my marriage. I I'll just gonna be, this is just me being honest here. I was kind of going through the motions trying to not be in trouble so that I could have sex with my wife. And I mean, that's real, okay? Now, how many of you guys out there have never thought about that? I can just tell you, I think you might be telling a tall tale. Because in the beginning, we want to be good so we're not in trouble, so our wife will like us and she'll give us affection. And so my wife would tell me at times, she goes, you know, it seems like the only thing you want with me is sex. And how many, and I and I would say, Amen. Finally, you understand it. Well, that that might be this kind of external kind of moment and connection that I'd have with my wife, but I didn't know that loving my wife like Christ loved the church would open up a level of love into my own life that would completely change how I saw myself and understood what real love is all about. It's so much more than arrows. And about all the movies you'll ever see from Hollywood, it's all about sexual love. And even in it's all of this twistedness and everything else, it's bombarding our children all the time. And so, what are your sons, what are your sons learning from you about how you lay your life down for their mom? Guys, when I'm beginning to understand that the way I'm loving Jill would be the way my sons would love their wives one day. Boy, what a wake-up call that was for me. Because our our sons will start out loving their spouses like we've modeled that. And I am so grateful. And then my sons that are married date their wives all the time. I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful that God began to turn my heart from just the complete self-focused manhood that I was building around my life, around my events and my world record bench press and NFL career, which by the way really didn't matter too much to my wife. She was glad I experienced all those things. But at the end of the day, she was sitting there waiting for an opportunity to have a peace of my heart. See, when you love your wife as Christ loved the church, you make yourself vulnerable to the one you love, and that's exactly what Christ, and there's many who will say no to him and reject him their whole life and miss out of eternity. And then there's others of us who say, Yes, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And something happens when there's that transfer of God's love into us. As we get it, worship is actually one of those acts of loving God. And it's the way we we do our job. Worship is more than music, it's the way we do business, it's the way we love our family, it's the way we're grandfathers, and and and and it's the way we're fathers. Worship is all about life, about it the way it's really our gift back to God, because we're so grateful. And you know, when I get kind of at odds with my wife, it's like the Holy Spirit reminds me of all the breakthroughs that I've needed from God because of how broken I was. When you begin to think about all the things that God has done in your heart and how he's never given up on you, because the model of you loving your wife is the model of the way Jesus loves you when you're ugly, when you're sideways. And it's such a powerful scripture here. It just it's right there in your face. You know, love your wife is is it's Christ loved the church, is sacrificial because it's the way you winner. You know, I do a lot of coaching with couples who are more bitter than they are loving. And with all the bitterness that's around them, they all got hooks in one another. I'll do this if you do this. If you don't ever do this again, I'll do this. And so they build these walls up between them, and and I remind them, I said, so what's your model? Who's taught you how to love this other person? And they say, Well, my dad never treated my mom that way. And so you you married a guy here who's who's flawed. Was your dad flawed? Well, yeah. Did he make mistakes? Well, well, yeah. Well, how did he deal with that with your mom? Well, he usually asked for forgiveness. So, why is it that you can't forgive your husband? Because he's not meeting all my needs. I said, Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. And so, let me ask you, what do you what do you like about it? Well, I don't like anything. It's one gal, and I went, wow, you're really hurting, aren't you? Because bitterness is the devil's way that he can get in between you and your spouse to destroy your relationship. That's why you got to be on guard, my friend. You know, what to watch out for the roots of bitterness in your family between you and your wife, or you and your daughters, or you and your sons. It's like, you know, I would hear that 007 warning song. When bitter when I saw bitterness kind of take root between me and my children. And when I went to them and asked them for forgiveness, or wanted to discover why they were mad at me and found out and then owned it. It's like God began to heal. And it's it's that's what love does. Love asks for forgiveness and loving somebody because but bitterness and hatred doesn't. And they just basically objectify you or demonize you or label you. That's what the world does right now, so they don't have to have a relationship. They can put on a political label on you. And it might be very true. You might be crazy progressive or or communist or uh Republican or far right, far left, all these are labels the devil wants in between you and I and people around us, so that God's love never comes through and heals relationships. See, the devil has great Thanksgivings when families don't meet together and they're still bitter for years. But he has a really bad Thanksgiving when you're around that table, is one of the things that we do at Thanksgiving in our family, is we go around the table to tell one another what we love about them. And it is just it's better than the pie. Let me, I'm telling you right now, and it's it's better than the food coma. It's when you learn to actively pursue other people the way Christ has pursued you. And finally, I just want to say this has He has Jesus ever given up on you when you're ugly, when you're mad, when you're sideways. So, how does he get you back? Think about it. Somebody walks up to you randomly and gives you a word, or a scripture pops out, or you see a billboard. I mean, it's like he's constantly pursuing you so that you can discover how much he loves you and the freedom you can have when you've received that love in your own life. You're gonna you'll be able to love your wife. And I just think that's a profound thing that happens. And so here's the second thing love your wife for her sake. Love your wife for her sake. Man, I tell you, I I've love my I've loved Jill many times for my sake. And I'm not understanding how how much it means to her when I'm coming her way and loving her. I am highly competitive. I am highly competitive. And even as a kid, I don't like second place. I remember when I first got married, it was kind of a game to me who could get the refrigerator first, and I would go to try to get there before Jill, and just kind of joking around with her and didn't realize she wasn't in competition with me, but she loves it when I let her win. It doesn't diminish me and the 605-pound bench press that I did one day and set a record in the NFL for many years, doesn't diminish the things I do, but it communicates something to her about how much I love her and I want to honor her and respect her. It says in Ephesians, Christ gave him up to her to make her holy, to cleanse her by the washing with water through the word of God, to present her to himself, a radiant church. I mean, I started seeing this even today looking at this, and I've taught this and I've done marriage seminars. Part of my role is to present my wife to Christ as a radiant bride that he's given me to love for a lifetime. And so you you love her for her sake, not love her for your sake. That's just a powerful thing. Here's the next point nourish and cherish her for being a woman. Gosh, this we we do we break this, guys, right? You know, Paul even addresses it in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. You know, we're working out, we're trying to get fit, we're trying to get fitter as we get older, and he who loves his wife loves himself. There, there's this part of this, when you learn to love the wife that God has given you, something happens. And after all, no one ever hated his own body. They feed it and care for their body just as Christ does the church. Men were the same back in Paul's day, they are now. We get completely focused on us and our stuff and our everything. And yet, underneath all of this is that we got to nourish and cherish her for being a woman. And so, you know, one of the things that I struggle with in the early days, and every once in a while I kind of blow this, is I I sort of kind of make fun of Jill, and I just tease her, and she does not like that. I think it's like really funny, and she doesn't like it at all. And and so I, you know, and you know, in in the early days, especially, and I still have this in me because I'm a guy, is that we we're really focused on ourselves. That's what the scriptures were, you know, and and we really want our wives to be. I this guy I was coaching recently, and I said, um, so would do you do you really cherish your wife for being a woman? And he goes, No, she's confusing. Why can't a woman be more like a man? I said, Well, there was a movie about that. And he says, I want my wife not to be so emotional. I said, Why does that bother you? Because I'm not wired that way. I said, Yeah, but you walk down the aisle with somebody who is that way. So, what's keeping you from doing that? And he confessed something to me. That's one of the temptations. And from the moment you've been married, okay, from the moment you've been married, my friend, the devil has put women in front of your view with the promise, oh, look at her. Maybe she could be, oh boy, I know I shouldn't look at her, I shouldn't be tempted. And so if you notice, I mean, when I'm at the beach, sitting with my wife at the beach, every beautiful girl in a skinny bikini seems to stop in front of my chair. And so one of the things I do that, you know, in the book of Jobs, it says, Lord, I made a covenant with my eyes that I might not sin against you. Because the way the devil, and he does this to the women too, is they end up looking at men thinking, boy, I wish my husband was more like him. Or we do, boy, I wish my wife was more like her. Or we see some kind of licentious movie scene going, boy, so I wish my wife would treat me the way this woman in this movie did her fake husband on a fake set, and they're having fake sex. Because the enemy wants to split you away from your wife by criticizing her and being frustrated with who how she's wired. Instead of loving the woman you have, you're constantly wondering, do I have what it takes? And I'll never forget this moment. I'm on my way to a ministry trip, and I'm flying to Indonesia to preach. And I'm on this plane, and my seat mate on this really long flight was an attractive gal who I could tell in the midst of the flight, she's hitting on me. And it's sort of just feeding this ego in me. And and I called one of my mentors and I said, you know, gosh, it kind of felt good that, you know, I I think I still got what it takes. And he looks at me without being an eye, so he's he said, So you needed that. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, if you notice in those places where you maybe are frustrated with your wife the most, the devil offers you an alternative so that you can feel more like a man, because your description of feeling like a man is having a woman who's hot after you. You could be on a desert island, and there might be only one other woman on the island other than your wife, and you're gonna play mind games with that woman who's not attractive. It's because the heart of who we are as a man, there's this place where we can slip into unbridled lust, and all of a sudden our heart is on this little rabbit trail or adventure. And it doesn't matter. It it doesn't matter how high up in the church you are or how low, the devil wants to completely distract you and to keep you from nurturing and treasuring or cherishing the woman that God has given you. And so part of that, you know, is is really you know coming to this place where you celebrate her for being completely different than you, and you really appreciate her because there is nobody else out there that's a better match for you. Because once you say yes, and here's the thing about marriage there's only one witness in the marriage that counts. You can have your family, your friends, but when you say, Will when you are talked to by the preacher, and he says, Will you take Jill to be your wife? To laugh with her in joy, to grieve with her in sorrow, to spend the rest of your life loving her. And when you say, I do, the witness that makes you two one flesh, it's a mysterious union of a husband and a wife, like Christ and his church. It's a picture of the of the last time. The Holy Spirit's there, and it's the witness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that makes two people one flesh. Where you decide in that moment and you you stay in commitment to that because you're gonna be attacked. Because if the devil can destroy your marriage, he's gonna come after your kids. Well, what happens if you've blown it and you married the wrong person, and now you have a new one? Well, your current one that you're married to is your last marriage, and so you still pursue and say, Lord, I need to learn how to love my wife like Christ loved the church. That's a powerful prayer for you, for me. Here's number four. Be unconditionally committed to your vow of being married to her. I just talked about this. And and when you blow it, and let me say this to you: if you blow it and you start playing these mind games, you you need to be part of a men's group. And we have those in our fatherhood academy, a place where you can go, hey, brothers, would you pray for me? This woman came after me, and it felt good and it shouldn't have. And my mind's been, you know, playing, you know, been on me, the enemy's been on me. Would you help me? And I mean to tell you, there's something happens when when you do that. And I'll never forget being at a promise keepers event many years ago, and you know, one of my heroes of the faith was gonna preach. And he he pulls us together in a in the back room. And I won't say his name, but he's a he's one of the more faithful men of God who's loved the same woman all of his life. His children took over his church. And he comes in the back room and he says, Man, I I was bombarded last night with lust. And uh Jeff Kemp, great quarterback friend of mine from the Rams, has a great ministry of teaching men how to huddle. Incredible ministry that he has. He says, something happens when you have a group of guys who've got your back that you can call and confess when you're being beat down. It's completely counterintuitive to us as men to call in a brother to say, hey man, pray for me. But when you got somebody who's in your corner and you know it, and you struggle, and you call them, and you and they struggle and they call you, and you confess your sins to one another, the Bible says in James that you'll be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. You need men in your story who know who you really are when you're struggling, so you can go to them and talk to them. And I'm gonna tell you, it's it's a prayer, and you know, when I go to my friends and said, Man, I've I've been struggling with this, I've never had in all my years of walking with Christ, you know, I'm 69. Years old. I got saved in my early 20s. I've never had a single guy ever come up to me and go, Oh my gosh, you did this. No, it's usually, man, you know what? I've been struggling with the same thing. There's something that happens when you draw a brother in who loves Jesus, who's committed to praying for you. And the Beatles did have one thing right. I could get by with a little help from a friend. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And the two will be one flesh. There's that union I talked about. This is a profound ministry, but I am talking about Christ and the church. And however, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself. And the wife must also respect her husband. Those are powerful, powerful truths that can keep you married, loving each other for a lifetime. And you know, one of the things that I am so grateful for is that when I take my wife out on dates, and we we date a lot, because I figured out a long time ago that I never completely catch my wife. I only kind of hook her. And she needs to be pursued so that she knows that I still love her. I thought, you know, when I first got married, I thought, you know, I'll uh to save money, I'll put in rose bushes and then go out and cut the roses off and bring them in the house. And she would get mad at me for destroying her rose bushes. I was trying to save money. She liked it that I have to go down and spend 50 bucks and buy a bouquet at some place and bring them home. I just did that today, matter of fact. And she just lit up, oh, you're such an amazing husband. It doesn't take much to do that. But the reason why is because you made a covenant to God to love her. How are you doing with that? And just, you know, just make it, you know, I I've learned that I can trust my wife with my heart. And so commit to making her part of your life and story for the rest of your life. And, you know, if you get a bunch of guys you hang out with all the time, well, friends are great. But, you know, just don't hang out with them so you can go out and drink beer and not be with your wife. Your wife needs to know that she is the most important relationship in your life. If you do that, watch what happens in her own heart. When we say I do, we're promising God, uh, listen to me when I say this, that we'll give ourselves every day to loving the girls he has made us one flesh with. And there's nothing more powerful than that. Are you gonna be tempted? Yes. Is the enemy gonna have bad days? Yes. But make that commitment. And finally, and I want to just end with this these couple of practical to-dos, because I'm a guy, I need to know what to do. How do I fix this? Well, number one, spend time every day in God's Word asking Him to teach you how to love your wife more today. Just every day, ask God to show you. If it's been a problem for you or even one of our brothers, it's been an incredible thing. Your marriage is great. Well, the way you keep a marriage amazing is you never stop pursuing your wife, never stop dating her. You know, write notes weekly to your wife and tell her what you love about her. Send it in the mail. One of the things I tell guys that are jilted from their daughters or their wives, just write it, go to the Hallmarks counter there or go get your car washed, write a couple of notes, put a stamp on it, and let it come in the mail to your wife. So she reads it. And to this day, my wife goes, You got this card for me? You are so amazing. And it's not that hard. She wants to know that I still want to pursue her because I think she's beautiful. And now here's a man-sized prayer, okay? This is I'm sorry for saying this. Ask her to teach you how to love her better. I have never met a wife who goes, There's nothing my husband can't do, because they got a list. But what I do tell her is like, oh, can you give me a couple things to work on that would really you know help our relationship together? And just listen. Because you made a covenant to do this, and it's not me first, it's you first. And it's a powerful thing. And finally, date your wife at least every month and spend a date talking about what you love about her. We date more than once a month, we probably average, I would say, twice a month since we've been married. And and so the whole focus of the night, I try to not make it about all the problems with our kids or our grandkids, and uh because we can do all that at home, but to go out and just spend time loving each other. And we've had some amazing sunsets and amazing moments, amazing dinners, just spending time loving each other. And one of the things that my wife and I learned in doing this all these years is we look around the restaurant around us, and um a lot of times the only ooze and ahs is the food. And we just don't see uh many people just really loving each other. They're having dinner, but they're still doing business or family business or whatever. But what if you you were all in, my friend, for your wife? Okay, it's the greatest gift you can give yourself because Ephesians says if he who loves his wife loves himself. And what that does is it releases more of your understanding how much God loves you, and it releases more of his presence and his power through his word in your life. And last but not least, you are modeling to your sons how to love their wife one day, and it'll all be worth it. And when my sons love my new daughters in love, you know, that they have said I do to. Oh gosh, it's just really powerful. And when my daughters, you know, have a man who's pursuing them and they're they made a choice to find somebody just like me. God's incredible. Not that my children haven't had problems and go through stuff, but God's given us marriage to do something in a in a man that is the greatest gift that we can have. And that is to experience what it's like to be loved and cherished by a girl who just wants to be part of our story, who just wants to be in the game, who wants to be honored and and and cared for. And so maybe maybe your marriage is struggling a little bit and or it's going really great. I'm so grateful if it's going great, but it one thing I've learned, it's it's never too late to learn more. And that's what we're about at the Fatherhood Academy. I mean, we're we're all about that. We're all about equipping men, and we're getting ready for a brand new launch over Fatherhood Academy real soon. And you might say, man, Ed, I also want to learn how to become a partner. Well, you can learn, become a partner, and become a donor. As a matter of fact, we have an incredible opportunity. I think our date's now gonna be the 18th of December, where we're gonna have an art show. Tejours truly is a is a painter, if you did not know that. I, you know, have, you know, I actually teach, you know, from my studio here. Here's one of my paintings on the wall of Mount Sinai. And one of the things that God's given me is to, I just I love to paint, and it's one of the ways I rest and to get up in the mountains. Imagine Jesus is like that. And and so there's these, you know, incredible things. That's my studio, that's one of my commission works right there. And maybe you're saying, man, Ed, I'd like to maybe get a smaller version of those. Not all of my paintings are enormous, right? But we're gonna have an event here in my house where if you're in a if you're in the area here, you're you're our guest, and we're gonna have appetizers and stuff during the day on the 18th. And you can come and make a bed for one of these paintings. We have a number of smaller paintings that that I've done actually on location, you know, in some of my favorite places in the world. Here's the beginning of of a painting standing on the the side of the mountain in Germont. In Switzerland was there, and this painting is is growing and it's gonna be finished, and you you can have this actually in your house, an actual painting that was painted on the side of a mountain and finished in the studio of you know what I saw when I stood on that mountain. And I have these, you know, different paintings that God has given me to do from the Sierra Mountains to all the the great mountain peaks in the world. And and if you even have a favorite one, we do commissions. And so all this is to let you know that in December we're gonna have an art show here and we're gonna officially release Tandy Studios, which is gonna be it's gonna be a part of our ministry. And you know, what whatever you end up giving and donating for these paintings, it also becomes a tax deduction for you and your house. It's a great deal all the way around. And you get to have one of my uh paintings that might have a bug or two embedded in it that actually was flying around Zermont and landed in my painting. So you can say, oh yeah, this is really from the outside. And so, anyway, if you'd like to know more about that, I would love to share that with you. And finally, if you're in a place where you want to uh uh really up your game, I want to talk to you about the Fatherhood Academy. We're gonna have a little video at the end and be looking. We have a brand new release date that's coming out, and finally, I got a t a television show with Kirk Cameron that's coming out around Thanksgiving time that I'm really excited about uh with TBN. So all that to say is is let's pray. So, Father, I pray for all the marriages that are represented here, from TikTok to Rumble to YouTube to Facebook pages to Instagram. I I pray, Lord, for all my men friends that are here that want to unlock their marriages and make them great. Father, I in all these years I've never seen anything that can't be healed in a marriage. And I pray for my brothers that are watching that you would heal their marriages and that you would bring them back to that first moment of commitment and understanding that you want to back them up. When they learn to love their wife as Christ loved the church, is one of the most loving things they can do for themselves. Because you're they they begin to tap into your incredible power that you gave all of us when Jesus when you rose from the dead. So I pray you would bless their marriages, I pray you would heal them. I pray, Lord, if they need coaching, that they would sign up in for a coaching time and and come and even sign up at the Fatherhood Academy. And I pray that you would use them, bless them as men, and help them build a legacy of love with their children and their grandchildren in the name of Jesus. And I pray, Lord, if for any of those families where the enemy has is worked over time to destroy their relationships with one another and with their kids, I pray you would heal that for the sake of their grandchildren one day. And I ask you to bless them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And all God's men said, Amen. I'm so grateful to be with you. Thanks for coming and hang out with me. And we have a little closing kind of video if you want to help support us. We're at the end of the year, and so we raise money every year to be able to continue doing these shows, our online devotionals that are going everywhere, my books that are being given away free. The difference a father makes in countries, many, many countries, 322, I think, is the current count around the world. I'm so grateful for that book going out there, and you make it possible. You want to be a patron, a donor, and you would like to get some art. That's available too. You can get a hold of me. I am so grateful to be with you tonight. And I have another group to go to, and all that to say, the Lord bless you and keep you, and may you look up and see his face smiling upon your life and your family in Jesus' name. God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Dear friends, imagine a world where every father feels equipped to lead with faith, love, and purpose. A world where families thrive and communities grow stronger because of devoted, Christ-centered fathers.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

You know, beloved, that is the vision that God's put in my heart for every single family. You know, he is on the move, I believe. He promises in Malachi that before the great and coming day of the Lord, he's gonna do something profound. He's gonna turn the hearts of fathers back towards their children. So the hearts of their children will turn back to their father. That's what God is doing. I meet dads daily who want to learn to be better fathers. Yet many have never been shown how. Too many families are being fractured to bitterness and with parents and grandparents even being canceled. That's why we're launching an online community to quit and to be the fathers that God has called them to be. It's more than a program, it's a part of a a movement that God is already doing to reshape fatherhood. It's a sacred calling rooted in the teachings of Christ. And we're calling this the Fatherhood Academy, where men will embark on a journey of healing and spiritual restoration that helps them transform their family relationship. And to make this vision a reality, would you consider partnering with us financially as we continue to reach and disciple every man, dad, and grandpa that comes our way? Your donation will help create a ripple across the neighborhoods, communities, you know, an ultimately our nature, anchoring each child, their division and the unwavering love and guidance of a devoted dad.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Will you partner with us? Your gift, whether a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, will help to transform lives. Together, we can equip fathers and grandfathers to lead with faith and create a brighter, hopefully future for generations to come. Click the link to donate today. Thank you for believing in this mission and joining us on this transformative journey.