Endless Sacrifice

Among the things I've taken to meditating on is love. Now, with all the things I do wrong, I can say with some confidence that this meditation is not one of them. Contemplation of love is, I think, one of the things any follower of Christ should indulge in frequently because, as I may have mentioned before, the importance of love is paramount in Christian living. That should go without saying.

Actually, I was blessed the other day with an opportunity to share this view with one of my coworkers; someone I'm uncertain has any understanding of what a Christian actually is. A lot of people have misconceptions about that, believing that Christians in general are just legalistic and pretentious, living our lives as the self-appointed judges of the world. Unfortunately, unaware of how we actually come off, this often ends up being the case. But with this coworker, the conversation we had flowed somewhat naturally into the vocalization of the loving way that Christians are called to live, and that a lot of us just subconsciously slip into the lifestyle for which we are often known.

Did my basic, abridged testimony have the intended effect of showing an accurate view of Christ's love? I hope so. But the depth of thought I've had on this subject couldn't be broken down into one short conversation in a professional setting.

A thought I've had spontaneously enter my mind several times over the years is the significance of sacrifice in love. To say plainly what I've said before, "If it ain't selfless, it ain't love." That is just to say, love necessarily involves sacrifice. That doesn't mean you'll never receive love, but it does mean that you must be willing to give it with the possibility of it not being reciprocated. I'd give some verses about when God set that example toward us, but that would pretty much encompass the entire Bible. So we'll just stick with the end of each gospel for examples: Christ allowed Himself to be crucified by us, for our sins. There's nothing more loving. There's nothing more selfless. There's nothing more sacrificial.

So where's the balance? Hypothetically, what if you give and give that love, endlessly, to your fellow man, but never seem to receive it? What if you're so busy caring for others that you don't have time and energy to care for yourself? To me it seems that real love is to necessarily have that willingness, knowing that God is pleased all the more, and that He loves us infinitely more anyway.

Practically, that means doing things you don't want to do, even and especially when you know your loving actions will go unrewarded, unacknowledged, or unnoticed. Why? Because Christ does it, and our calling is to be more Christ-like.