Love each other… How – Sacrifice…
Last week we saw that as Christians we should love other Christians, the reason tat we should love other Christians is because God loves us. Now over the next few weeks we are going try and get very practical in how we should love each other, as Christians. We are going to look at three ways that we should love each other, each week we will first look to Jesus’ example (how He loved like this), and then we will focus in on some of the ways that we can begin to love like this, following Jesus’ example.
The fist way that we get to love other Christians is through sacrifice. Sacrifice is a taboo word in our culture today, to most people it is the opposite of success. Yet Jesus, the single most well known figure of all history, not only spoke of sacrifice, He lived it, and loved through it. Let’s have a look:
Jesus’ example – Ephesians 5v1+2: 1Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus laid down His life as a ransom for you and for all those who call on His name, He suffered at the hands of the Romans, He endured the wrath of God that should have been poured out on you, He took it on your behalf. Jesus sacrificed His very own self for you, He stepped down from eternity in time, He constrained Himself to time and space, the very King of all of everything clothed Himself as a human, He lived among us, and then died for us. Jesus knew what it was to sacrifice in the name of love. That is the example that He has set for us.
And us – How then can we imitate Jesus’ example in sacrificial love? We can give, our time, our talents, our money to others. If Christ sacrificed His very own self in love for you, is it then too much to ask that you sacrifice some of yourself for your fellow believers? You have been given so much, can you not sacrifice some of it for those that you love?
1John 3v17+18: 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.
