Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved.
“ ‘Cause love never claims the victory until it finally gives it’s all.”
The above line, from a Ginny Owens song, speaks volumes about the Christian life. We find it so hard to believe that sacrifice is a good thing. In our fallen self-centeredness it seems like we must protect ourselves at all costs, and so we love little because it feels unsafe to do otherwise. By that measure the Lord we worship lived a very unsafe life.
Ever notice that the most truly whole persons in our churches always seem to be those who are the most truly other-centered, the ones who care less about their own interests than those of the people around them? These are the brethren in our congregations whose lives have an authentically deep and enduring joy. They often manifest a kind of well-being, a peace and sense of purpose, that make them seem literally to almost glow in the presence of their fellows. It is easy to be envious of these Christians who appear to have found a secret of joyful life that eludes the rest of us. Some may take only a superficial look and discount them as being “hopelessly perky”. Others wonder if they are living in some kind of dream world.
But what if that dream world is the place of true Christlikeness? Could it be that the giving of all for others really is the path to fully knowing and receiving the love we all so desperately need? Jesus said that we must lose our lives in order to find our true lives. By this perhaps he meant that we must lose our self-focused lives by sacrificially entering into the interests and needs of others. Scripture tells us that the Son of God went to his death confident that it would be worth it for the joy of seeing so many lost sinners saved, restored both to the place of being sons and daughters of His Father and becoming His own new brothers and sisters . So he died to self in the most profound way, by actually giving up the earthly life to which most of us so tightly hold. Then he took up His life anew, a glorified life that fully belongs only to those who, in true love, give their all.
At face value living this way seems impossible, and so it is if attempted in our own strength. It is a sad farce to try to lead a sacrificial life in the power of our flesh. Some may appear to succeed for a time, but the end result of trying to produce such a life this way is always bitterness and the realization that apart from God we can truly do nothing. The good news is that His empowering love can be our own if we sincerely ask for Him to fill us with it. The spirit of love is the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of sacrificial love especially so. Those glowing people in our churches who we see and envy, whose loving nature we covet, we can become ourselves.
The key to a deeper victory of love in us is found in receiving it from He whose cup truly overflows with love. We need only sincerely ask Him to remove our self-centered hearts and give us His own. As we progressively do this over the span of our lives here on earth we will ultimately find our own wellbeing in living for the wellbeing of others, to the glory of our risen Lord.
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