Family Focus
LOVE MAKES SACRIFICES Stephen & Alex Kendrick
He laid down His life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers. I John 3:16 HCSB
Life can be hard. But what we usually mean is that our life can be hard. We’re the first to feel it when we’re the ones being mistreated or inconvenienced. We’re quick to sulk when we’re the ones who feel deprived or unappreciated. When life is difficult for us, we notice.
But too often the only way we notice that life is hard for our mate is when they start complaining about it. Then instead of genuinely caring or rushing in to help, we might think they just have a bad attitude. The pain and pressure they’re under don’t register with us the way it does when it’s our pain and pressure. When we want to complain, we expect everyone to understand and feel sorry for us.
This doesn’t happen when love is at work. Love doesn’t have to be jarred awake by your mate’s obvious signs of distress. Before worries and troubles have begun to bury them, love has already gone into action mode. It sees the weight beginning to pile up and it steps in to help. That’s because love wants you to be sensitive to your spouse.
Love makes sacrifices. It keeps you so tuned in to what your spouse needs that you often respond without being asked. And when you don’t notice ahead of time and must be told what’s happening, love responds to the heart of the problem.
Even when your mate’s stress comes out in words of personal accusation, love shows compassion rather than becoming defensive. Love inspires you to say “no” to what you want, in order to say “yes” to what your spouse needs.
That’s what Jesus did. “He laid down His life for us” to show us that “we should also lay down our lives” for others. He taught us that the evidence of love is found in seeing a need in others, then doing all we can to satisfy it. “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me” (Matthew 25:35-36).