Merry Christmas!

And may you have the power to understand…how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

ephesians 3.18-19 nlt

Love: Sacrifice

Love exhibits itself in all kinds of ways to all kinds of people. But this morning, I was reflecting on love, as an action, exhibited through sacrifice.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross! Philippians 2.5-7

Jesus humbled Himself to come to us. He downsized, significantly. He came to serve. He came as a sacrifice. It was all very unglamorous, very raw, very crude, very painful, of the “the center of your chest suddenly freezes and hurts” variety.

And the beginning of the passage says “your attitude should be the same”.

My love doesn’t normally involve unrecognized humility, service, sacrifice, pain. I am used to loving people in a way that I enjoy and that produces happy, self-satisfying feelings afterwards. Or maybe a “thank you”. But it is much harder for me to love when I don’t get the sticky-gooey feelings we associate with love.

But the Bible makes it clear that Jesus loving us through sacrifice (both His coming and His death) is the standard by which we are to love each other:

Ephesians 5.2 – …live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

1 John 3.16-18 – This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Now, I’ll be honest. The gifts I am/have given this season to show others that I love them have not cost me much. I mean, there will be a large credit card statement that will need to be paid off in January, but I didn’t give something I don’t have, I didn’t give anything that hurt me to give…I didn’t sacrifice. For any of you.

That’s because many of the sacrifices we make in relationships are not of the material sort. It is time given to help another out. Overlooking faults. Giving up our plans for the day (or night, as may be the case if you have very small children). Not saying things that, while true, don’t need to be said. Saying things that, while difficult, need to be said. Not insisting that everything be “fair” in the relationship. Forgiving insensitivites, or even outright meanness…even if they don’t ask it of you.

These are the things that hurt to give. And that’s where real love is demonstrated. The kind of love that God gave us that very first Christmas