Sacrifice
If you polled people off the street and asked them, “What is the most important aspect of marriage?,” what would they say?
My guess would be that they would say something like, “Well, the two people should love each other.”
If you then followed up that answer with, “What is love?,” you would receive a lot of nebulous answers. We all love love, but none of us really know what it means.
Paul dealt with that in 1 Corinthians. He was just trying to get that church to love each other despite their natural differences. It was in the middle of this teaching that we have what we now consider to be the “love chapter.” This chapter is one of the shortest in the New Testament and gives us the clearest picture of what love is.
He first tells us what type of people we are if we don’t have love.
You could be someone who has all the giftings and abilities and talents in the world. You could give away everything you have. If you don’t have love, you are, at best, a loud noise to people. At worst, to others, you are nothing. When you don’t love your spouse, when you talk, you are just a loud noise. Without love, you become nothing to your own spouse.
Ouch.
Then Paul describes what love is and is not…
Love is…
- Patient
- Kind
- Someone who rejoices with the truth
- Bears all things
- Believes all things
- Hopes all things
- Endures all things.
Love isn’t…
- Envious
- Boastful
- Arrogant
- Rude
- Insistent in its own way
- Irritable
- Resentful
- Someone who rejoices when someone else fails.
If you were to define love as simple as possible, how would you do it? Love is…
Sacrifice.
The first person is sacrifices themselves for others. The second person worries more about themselves than others. You know a person characterized by the second list. Their lives are not that important to you are they? When they talk, all your hear is noise, right?
Think about Love Is Sacrifice through the framework of the entire Bible, and especially the Gospels. Does this not characterize what love really is? Didn’t Jesus define love this way?
Love isn’t a gooey emotion. Love is sacrifice. It is a day-in, day-out choice to sacrifice yourself for your spouse. In fact, it is the everyday that is so difficult. We’d rather take a bullet for someone than sacrifice for them everyday.
But, when you sacrifice yourself for your spouse, you gain influence. When you sacrifice yourself for your spouse, they don’t hear just noise coming from your mouth. You have real impact in their lives.
In Real Life…
How can you sacrifice yourself for your spouse in the next 24 hours?
