Sacrificial Love
In most romantic movies and shows we see today, it is very common to see the characters getting hurt and broken after being dumped by the one whom they thought was the One.
When they gave their whole heart out to the other person, shared their most intimate personal secrets with them, spent every waking moment with them, and ultimately trusted them, then later getting dumped left a big gap in their hearts.
I believe that the desire to find true love in life is innate in all of us. We are so eager to have someone fill our every need, someone whom we can exert all our effort and energy to, and someone who can give us joy that nothing else in the world could ever give.
So we go on a frantic search for "Mr. or Ms. Right" to the point that we jump at every opportunity of love, only to find out in the end that we were not meant for each other.
As I have learned, there has always been a deep void in the core of our being which keeps us restless and discombobulated until we find the answer to fill that void so we look for the answers in different things but oftentimes, we never find what we need because the world cannot give us what we need.
Giving our whole hearts to someone else, to our jobs or careers, or even to a certain system or credo may break us down and leave us with nothing because these things are not permanent.
If we pour our whole heart out to something and we find meaning through that, then when it crumbles and falls apart, we will no longer find any reason to live after that.
I believe and know in my heart that we can only find meaning and purpose in life and genuine love in Jesus Christ. His love endures forever and when everything in the world fades away, His love will still remain.
But more than this, we know that His love is true and genuine because of His sacrifice on the cross, dying for our sins and being risen again to be our Lord and Savior and to give us hope from His resurrection.
Sacrificial Love. I think those two words can never be separated from one another. Whenever we love someone truly, we should always be prepared to sacrifice our own convenience for their benefit.
The same way that Jesus became nothing so that He can give us everything that has been given to Him. He left His throne in heaven and took up human form to show us how much He cares and loves us.
Remember the parable of the good Samaritan? Jesus explains to us through that parable how to put the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourselves," into practice.
He shows us that loving our neighbor requires us to sacrifice our time, our convenience, our resources, and our comforts for those who are in need no matter who they may be, whether you are in good terms with them or not.
He shows us that loving sacrificially means that we put others' needs before our own and we do that wholeheartedly without asking for anything in return and without harboring any feeling of resentment or regret in doing so.
He wants us to love just as He loves us and as the Father in heaven loves us. We need to love despite the wrong things others have done against us and forgive them for their trespasses because that is the character of love that God showed us through Jesus.
Jesus sacrificed Himself willingly. No one had to force Him to do what He had done and in fact, He did not need to do what He did but because He loves us so much, He gave Himself up and took upon Himself the burden of the world and nailed it on the cross.
Jesus tells us in John 15 that there is no greater love than a man would lay his life for a friend. And that is exactly what love is.
If you want to know what true love is, fix your eyes on Jesus and see the wondrous works He has done for us and the ultimate sacrifice that He made for us.
If you want to experience that kind of love, you can find it in Jesus and by accepting Him in your life. There is nothing else we can find such deep and pure love than with Jesus.
And I assure you that when you accept Jesus into your life and submit every aspect of your life to Him, He will take care of it all. You will have nothing to worry about! When you have Jesus, you have everything you would ever need in life and more.
So I pray that we remind ourselves of what Jesus did for us two millennia and more ago as we celebrate Holy Week. Let us remember that God loves us so much and with that thought, put our whole faith and heart in the hands of God. Let us trust in His unfailing love!
God Bless!
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