Joy that comes from losing oneself...
I am torn by things that happens around me and yet despite how painful some of the things are happening around me, I am reminded today about the call for sacrifice.
The word sacrifice seem to carry a stigma of negativity where it is something that is often avoided by society because it speaks of uneasiness. As much as there is no disagreement there, there is something else about sacrifice that people do not tend to see, and that is the satisfaction that comes from it. More than just a psychological phenomenon, sacrifice is a nature of the image of God that we carry in us.
As true that as humans we can be very selfish beings, it is just as true that created in the image of God and a product of His nature, we too carry the phenomenal joy that comes with sacrifice. God's love for us is a sacrifice that demands no less of an attention from Him being a God that is capable of doing anything. In other words, God's greatest affection comes not from His powers to perform anything, but rather coming from His sacrificial act that is driven by His pure unconditional love for us.
God's nature to love in sacrifice is evidence in humanity. It is founded in the sacrifice of mother for her children, it is found in the movement of charitable acts, it is founded in the endurance of a soldier fighting for his country and not to mention, it is founded in the sacred covenant of a marriage that even Paul would describes it to be a profound mystery.
Sacrifice is driven by love that demands no emotional attachment, but of acts of obedience because of the the truth. As I reflect on how I understood the love of God for me and how I responded to Him, I responded to God not simply because I felt emotionally touched by Him but by seeing how my obedience revealed His power through the little acts that I do. The emotional part comes much later when I start to see the bigger picture of a plan that I cannot even begin to comprehend.
So in the midst of living a life here on earth that seem bleak and uncertain as God calls us to worship not through emotional drive but by Spirit and truth and that is simply comes from taking a little mustard seed faith to see how truth can change a mountain size situation. Sacrifice then become less of a dreadful endeavor but a transference of investment in a future glory that does not fade and that itself supernaturally brings such strength and joy that precedes our understanding.
Losing oneself through sacrificial love is less of being robbed off self preservation but simply finding comfort in the control of God's sovereignty that is bounded by faith hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.
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