Road to Reflection

Love is a life laid down

Aug 15, 2023

It’s a good Tuesday in August and another segment of Road to Reflection, a section where I pen my thoughts and lessons from experiences as an everyday believer. If this is your first time on Bud and Blossom, feel free to check for older posts here.

As I continue my journey of repentance which was hinted previously in this segment, I am learning and relearning aspects of love that Papa desires for His children.

One of these is the concept of sacrifice and how it is embedded in love itself. God is and gave the world the perfect example of true love through His sacrifice that was made when we were not His friends.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Romans 5:6-11, NKJV

Jesus Christ further emphasized how a total obedience and offering of ourselves to God illustrates our love for Him, just as He did, us.

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
John 15:12-14, NKJV

Believers are called to live the love-life that Jesus Christ did. It means that there will be moments when we will lay down ourselves for our neighbours, as the Spirit of God leads us. Sacrifices come in different ways and sometimes, the person(s) involved may not grasp the true value of actions we (you) may be led to take at specific moments. Still, God will ask us to do certain things so that the others may see Him through us.

Living the love-life also implies a complete laying down of our beings for God. This is primarily where the ability to sacrifice in our relationships with people will stem from. It will require us to lay our likes, loves, relationships, desires and wants at the altar of the Saviour. It means that we will give up ourselves for Him in many ways than we may naturally want to. It is a complete surrender to Hashem, and His Word, holding nothing back.

This kind of love God calls us to will be tough and painful, but not purposeless. It will burn our hearts and perhaps make us weep. It will sometimes cause our flesh to grieve. Still, it will be the very thing that our bodies, souls and spirits’ entirety needs.

Here is a poem I wrote months ago while ruminating on John 3:16 that seems to fit this subject: