Proverbs 5:15, 17–20 NIV “Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well… Let them be yours alone… May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth… may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?”

Men don’t just want intimacy—God designed us to need it. It fuels purpose, steadies priorities, and strengthens a man’s soul. When sexual desire collapses, a man’s vitality collapses with it. Scripture doesn’t shame this desire—it directs it. God channels it toward one sacred place: the marriage bed between one man and one woman.

The real power of pornography isn’t the images—it’s the illusion of a willing woman. It’s counterfeit intimacy offering zero covenant and zero cost. But the price a man pays for consuming it is devastating—shame, isolation, spiritual erosion, and a slow death of confidence and purpose.

At the same time, many Christian husbands silently bear a deep wound: a marriage bed that has gone cold. Countless wives withdraw sexually—whether due to disinterest, fatigue, resentment, or using intimacy as emotional leverage. This leaves husbands in a torturous tension:
a celibacy that crushes his soul or an infidelity that destroys his life.

This tension is a major cause of broken Christian marriages. The Church must teach what Scripture teaches—not merely about avoiding adultery, but about actively cultivating intimacy inside the marriage. Wives need clear, biblical encouragement that ongoing sexual availability is part of their covenant commitment, not a negotiable extra. A husband’s joy, contentment, and long-term faithfulness are profoundly shaped by his wife’s willingness to engage him intimately.

Yet husbands cannot respond with bitterness, entitlement, withdrawal, or secret sin. God calls men to love their wives as Christ loves the Church—unconditionally, sacrificially, and with relentless righteousness.

• No pornography

• No emotional escape

• No abandoning the wife of your youth

• No compromise of character

Instead, men must communicate. Gently, truthfully, repeatedly. They must lead with grace and courage until healing and resolution come.

This is how a man guards his well, strengthens his home, and honors God with his body and his leadership.

Run Today’s Play: Brother, step toward your wife—spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Have the courageous conversation. Express your God-given need without accusation or anger. Lead with patience while standing firm in purity. Refuse pornography, refuse passivity, and refuse to let your marriage drift into isolation.

Guard your well. Fight for intimacy. Protect your covenant.
This is how you lead like Jesus—and how your marriage lasts until death do you part.