Self-sacrifice
Self-sacrifice
“No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Self-Giving or Self-Preserving?
Any good father knows that love sacrifices its own pleasure, agenda, time, comfort, and life for the sake of another. Jesus loved you to the maximum. He laid down His life “that He might bring you to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). He could have demanded His rights and clung to His comforts, but He let them go. Instead, He emptied himself (see Phil. 2:5–8). He rescued you “from the domain of darkness” and died in the process (Col. 1:13). For Jesus, self-preservation was not the ultimate priority; love was!—love for His Father, for you, for the world.
Big Ways, Small Ways
True love gives. When you love as Jesus loved, you will sacrifice yourself for others. It may mean offering up some kind words, a helping hand, a gentle touch, or a cup of cold water. Or it may even mean offering up your life in the service of the gospel. Sacrifices like these prove that “God’s love has been poured out in our hearts” (Rom. 5:5).
There’s a great paradox in Jesus’ kind of love: you give your life away to gain it (see Mark 8:35). You don’t count your life dear to yourself if it prevents you from loving others (see Acts 20:24). Like David Livingstone, the great explorer and missionary to Africa, you come to feel that you really never made a sacrifice. This is only possible when you are so satisfied in Christ and awed by His sacrifice, anything you give up feels like nothing in comparison.
Bottom Line
Love is a joyful and willing self-sacrifice to meet another’s needs.