As a pastor and a husband, I've had to grapple with this question many times. In my experience, love and sacrifice are not mutually exclusive, but rather, they are deeply intertwined. When I think about my relationship with Susan, my wife of 19 years, I realize that true love requires sacrifice. It's not just about feeling emotions or having a romantic connection, but about putting the other person's needs before our own. When Joshua and Rebecca, our children, were young, we had to make sacrifices for their sake, whether it was giving up our plans or financial resources to provide for them.
As I reflect on my own life, I see that sacrifice is not just about grand gestures, but about the small, everyday choices we make. It's about putting our children's needs before our own desires, even when it's hard. It's about being willing to be uncomfortable or to make difficult decisions for the sake of our family. And it's about being willing to surrender our own interests and desires to God, trusting that He has a greater plan.
The Bible teaches us that love is not just a feeling, but a choice. It's a choice to put the other person's needs before our own, even when it's hard. As Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). This is not just a call to grand, heroic acts of sacrifice, but to the everyday, mundane choices we make to love and serve others. When we choose to sacrifice for the sake of others, we are not just loving them, we are loving God. And when we do this, we find that our love becomes more authentic, more selfless, and more like the love of God.