1 John 3:16-20
16This 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. 17If 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? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
John 15:9-15
9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
True love requires sacrifice. It’s true. To truly give of your love, you must be willing to sacrifice for it. According to the dictionary, the word sacrifice means “destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else”. In Other words, to give up something.
Sacrifice, that’s kind of a hard word for most of us. Really, it’s a word we don’t like to use all that often. We don’t want to sacrifice much, not money, not time, not our possessions, and not our lives. To truly understand what sacrifice is, and what it would look like in our lives, we have to consider what God sacrificed for us. Stop and think for a moment. Stop and just thank Jesus for being the ultimate sacrifice for us. Without Christ, we are nothing (John 15:6). He paid it all so we could be free. Take time right now to praise and worship Him for His most excellent sacrifice.
One of my favorite songs from Third Day is Offering. Here are a couple lyrics that penetrate my heart:
“Who am I that You should suffer
Your very life to set me free
The only thing that I can give You
Is the life You gave to me
This is my offering, dear Lord
This is my offering to You, God
And I will give You my life
For it’s all I have to give
Because You gave Your life for me”
Have you sacrificed your life and they way the world tells you to live? Have you declared to God that you will live your life in obedience to Him who died for you?
Related Text:
2 Corinthians 5:15
“And Jesus died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
