I often get a chuckle over the ongoing thread that I have with my oldest child. He feels that I am too demanding of him. For every day I ask him to not feed our pets but fill the containers that his younger brother uses to feed the animals. Twice a day I ask him to check dehumidifiers and dump them if they are full. Finally once a week I ask him to vacuum and mop the floors in our home. Sacrifice is a beautiful thing and can also be a rather demanding one at the same time. Through sacrifice we ignore our desires and our will for something greater. Most of the time this is done out of love. We sacrifice because we choose to. God came to us in human form through Jesus. He learned, lived, loved and felt the pain of a human existence. He did this out of love. He began his ministry and walked the lands teaching and preaching love, and to love at all costs. Love everyone you meet as yourself and love God with all your body, mind and soul. Jesus asked us to follow his teachings and God’s ways for if we make this world out of love we would have a better world. The tricky part is that to love everyone we have to often ignore what we want. We have to sacrifice “my will” for “thy will” or rather God’s will. I have my son learn a variety of tasks around the house not just to prepare him for when he is on his own, but to also learn the importance of giving back or “loving thy neighbor”. Often in our talks I explain that that while he sacrifices his time and desires to do these chores his acts help the rest of the family. God gives us free will so we can choose to do whatever we want. We can choose to take care of ourselves and ignore the rest. We can feed every desire that we have and choose to live a life devoid sacrifice. If we take this to the extreme we all know that our health will fail if we choose to eat, drink and satisfy every vice that arises to no end. The same is for our soul. We can fixate on ourselves and live a life devoid of sacrifice and love of others, or we can live a life of discipline. We can live a life of love. We can love God and follow his ways and teachings and spread love in this world. We can love each person we meet as we love ourselves. We can sacrifice just Jesus sacrificed. Rarely is it that we have people openly mock us in the streets. Seldom is it that people line the walk ways to spit on us as we walk to our death. Few will know the pain of being whipped and beaten for teaching love. Most of us will never know the pain of having nails driven through our wrists, feet and being hung on a cross till we die. God does ask us though to lose our life though rather to give up our life focused on “ME”. He asks us to “loose” that life and let it die to live a life of giving and love so that we can save our soul and live eternally with God, Jesus and Holy Spirit in heaven where true, pure and honest love reigns and creates a paradise that we can barely fathom here on earth.
Luke 9:22-25
22saying, "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." 23And he said to all, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. 25For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
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