Sacrificial Love

We will never admit it with our mouth, but we speak it daily in our actions. We are naturally selfish as the human race. We seek our own good and get upset when we don't find it. We get lost in the 'What is in it for me?'.

I'm not looking to offend anyone. I'm equally as guilty of so much more than that. 

We all are.

However being a new creation in Christ we are instilled with a new nature: Sacrificial love. This reoccurring theme in my life of relationships has honestly been quite tiring. I'm sitting here alone on my bed thinking, "Jesus, what the frick. I am not by any means in a relationship. Nor am I anywhere close to having one". 

This is where I was grabbed by every message and bible verse and shaken around a little bit.

My relationships aren't about me.

They're about Jesus.

Nor is a relationship simply 'my boo' at the time or the man I can't stop batting my eyelashes at. It's about my mom and dad. It's about my sisters and brothers. It's about my best friend. It's about my friends-of-friends, co-workers, bosses, that guy I accidentally elbowed on my way to class and his friends. 

Jesus laid it out pretty clearly. He told us to love everyone. Even the girls down the hall who cackle at me because they find me repulsive. I'm supposed to love them.

"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." -Romans 13:8-10

"Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins." -1 Peter 4:8

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." -Matthew 5:44

And not only are well called to love people but we are called to love people like Christ has loved us. 

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." -John 13:34-35

We all get this idea that love is supposed to benefit us directly. Which don't get me wrong it does, but only if we are doing it right. If our satisfaction is all we seek out of love, and consciously or subconsciously we get get into the mindset of "how does this benefit me?" we are no longer really loving. If we realize that the relationship is no longer really benefiting us anymore and we bail, that is no longer really loving. I'm guilty of this one as well.

However what I have so humbly learned is that evidence of TRUE LOVE is not self seeking in the slightest. It is giving of yourself even when it hurts. It is hurting when they hurt even though you don't want to. It is going out of your way to make sure they are okay. It is waking up at 3:00 AM when your best friend can't sleep because she just found out her mom has cancer. It is driving across town on your last tank of gas to pick up a friend who needs to talk. It is giving away your last $20 to send a friend to Africa. It's cancelling your plans or missing out on sleep because they need you. It's giving the last of what you have because they need.

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." -John 15:13

Love is never easy and we will always fail each other in this. But if we really saw that this was what love was about then I can guarantee divorce wouldn't be so rampant. We'd be serving our husbands and wives instead of bailing because "they can't give me what I want", "they don't understand me", or "they don't treat me the way I deserve to be treated". If we saw love this way I can bet you that we would love each other more deeply instead of love being so fleeting. Love can cure the sickness of the heart and soul.

"By this we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." -1 John 3:16

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8 

This is how Christ loves us. It's unreal. I can spit in His face and Jesus still laid His life down for me. He loved me through the whipping, through the nails, and through the mocking. Now on the other hand of His love, is His life in me. Out of His love I am able to love. Out of His love I am able to love Him back in great lengths that I would have never been able to love before. His love for me will in the end bring Him glory. I am all about that! Without Christ there is a void of true love. We will not know it and we will scour the ends of the planet looking for it. Without Christ any other mirage of love is invalid. He is the only source of real love. So although I'll fail a million times over and although I will have my days of selfishness and self-righteousness. Thank God I am covered. When Christ lives in me, I can sacrificially love until it hurts. I pray that this is a love that someday everyone knows, and my heart hurts for people who don't know. It's a love we need to share.

 ^"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." -1 John 4:7-12