Sorting out love, at least objectively from the pages of a story, is relatively easy. If my personal emotions are not clouding or confusing the issue, I know that love is not about words. Does the lover show it in actions?
Actually, Jesus gives the ultimate expression of love. This is stated in the context of my devotional verse for today.
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. (1 John 3:16–19)Jesus proved that He loves us by giving His life for us, literally. While that literalness might not be called for in my lifetime, He still expects me to be willing to offer sacrificial love for those He places in my path. If someone is needy and I can supply that need, love will do it. Real love will cost me something and real love means laying down that something, whatever it is.
Loving self-sacrifice can mean giving just about anything. A moment of time on a busy day is just as much a sacrifice as a hundred dollars from a dwindling bank account. Giving up what I want or think I need is an act of love.
Not that love in action is unpleasant. Even non-Christian people know that doing things for others can make us feel good. However, the Bible isn’t talking about that as a motivation. If I only ‘love’ others because there is something in it for me, then I’m not loving them at all.
That self-focus is more like the ‘love’ depicted in most romance novels and in movies and television. It is generally a “feel-good, I love what she/he does for me” kind of emotion. The Bible calls for a love that goes far beyond that.
If asked to make a list of the things people have done to show me that they love me, the life and death of Jesus Christ would be first. However, there are others that stand out in my mind. When I was near-death as a child, in the middle of the night one of them was always in the big chair beside my bed, awake, watching me. The hospital was 25 miles from our farm home and I had three siblings. Being there was a sacrifice.
I remember a hand-crafted gift from a person who was too busy to have done this during normal hours. It must have been created after dark when the giver should have been sleeping. Not only was the gift perfect for me and a total surprise, that was a sacrifice.
Once, during a time in my life when I needed it, someone spent hours and days with me, asking questions and listening. That too was a sacrifice. I’ve had people spend money or time or energy to help me with projects or problems. These too are sacrifices.
Giving up something to free me so I can give to others is how Jesus defines love. It is putting their needs, sometimes even their wants, ahead of my own. It is getting up in the night to comfort a child who had a nightmare, but it is also reaching out to a panhandler who is far less loveable, but just as needy.
The kind of love that the Bible asks of those who are Christian is not possible without the input of the Lord Jesus Christ who lives in us. Without Him, I can love when it suits me, when it is easy, or even when situations call for it. Yet I cannot do this for my enemies, those who are offensive or offend me, or the people who simply are unlovable or do not, in my opinion, deserve it.
Jesus never let any of those things stop Him. In His perspective of what is lovable, everyone falls short. Our sin makes us ugly and unclean, yet, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
To live is Christ by this definition means that I must rely on Him totally, and remember that I have a long way to go before His image is perfectly formed in me.
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