The following is something Lori wrote for The Generous Wife recently:
I had someone write me recently, telling me that their husband did not “deserve” their generosity. While I understand the personal hurt behind such a thought (really I do), I would like to suggest that generosity is not something that is given because it is deserved. It is given because of the nature of the giver, not the nature of the receiver. Generosity is an expression of the love in your heart directed toward others, regardless of how they will respond. There is not so much a tip in what I’ve written, but rather something just to ponder and allow God to use in your life. He desires to conform us to His image. He’s generous. Allow Him to work that into your nature as well, regardless of how “deserving” people are or whether or not they are willing to respond in kind.
“Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God’s dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.” A.W. Tozer
I must agree with my bride on this! And to me, this is really about being a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was very clear – we are not just to love others as we love ourselves, we are even to prefer others to ourselves. Beyond that, it’s just wise to be generous to one’s bride, in my opinion. Ponder the following verses:
“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” [Luke 6:37-38 NKJV]
Are those verses about marriage? I don’t see how we can not apply them to marriage. But I have never seen those verses as a promise that we will receive from those we give to – rather I see it as a promise that if we are generous, we will receive, and if we are stingy we will not receive. Given the important of marriage to God, I rather suspect our generosity, or lack of generosity, to our spouse is heavily weighted in the mechanics of the spiritual law of generosity.
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In the original context the Luke passage seems to be focussed especially on love and forgiveness towards enemies – which if you think about it is actually very applicable to marriage.
Ephesians 5 says we are to love our wives as Christ loves the church.
And He certainly doesn’t love us because we deserve it.