Relationships: Sacrificial Love

Little girls often dream of marriage. They imagine their own knight in shining armor galloping into their lives to whisk them away to the land of Happily Ever After. In these youthful fantasies they disregard any notion of trouble or tension, believing that fairy tale, romantic love will catapult them over any dark or dreary detail. Many times, we girls treasure that delicious picture up in our hearts, and fail to allow our inner selves the freedom to grow up into the reality of adulthood. The fairy tale becomes our own secret idol.

Daughter, I encourage you to cast off the idol. It will only serve to discourage you.  Marriage is a blessed union. It is a gift from the Lord in so many ways, but that does not mean that it is an effortless fairytale. Your prince is a sinner, and so are you. Building a stable and happy marriage is hard work, but the fruit of that hard work is worth every moment of sweat and labor!

In marriage, our ministry to our spouses is love. Romantic love does come into play, of course, but the kind of love I am speaking about is sacrificial, or agape love.

Agape love is defined here as:

"Unconditional love that is always giving and impossible to take or be a taker. It devotes total commitment to seek your highest best no matter how anyone may respond. This form of love is totally selfless and does not change whether the love given is returned or not."

^{Needless to say, agape love does not come naturally, nor can we muster it up on our own. In order to walk out life with sacrificial love, we wives must be surrendered to Jesus. Sacrificial love grows in direct relation to the trust that is developed within the depth and breadth of our relationship with Christ. We cannot sustain a sacrificial love if we have not actively participated in the gospel - the sacrificial love of Jesus, each and every day. So daughter, read the Word of God and speak the truth to yourself everyday. Ponder the richness of His love for you. Romans 5:8 says, “...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” How might we let this truth fuel our love for our husbands?}

^{Read 1 Corinthians 13, below, replacing the word love with “Sacrificial love.”}

^{“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.}

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

See that last sentence, verse 13? 

^{Faith – in Christ.}

^{Hope – eternal. One day there will be no tears, no pain, no sin. We will be fully renewed!}

^{Love – sacrificially, like Jesus.}

^{Abide in these.}

^{Faith in Jesus and hope for an eternal future with Him helps us love sacrificially. We can be patient when our husbands don't resemble the knight of our dreams. We can create boundaries with sacrificial love, doing what is best for our marriages, rather than what is easier for ourselves. The love of Christ is the foundation of all hope and faith and it is the secret to successful marriages.}

Grateful for grace,

Yvonne Ferlita has been married for nearly twenty-five years and is mother to four children ages 22, 20, 16 and 11 years old. She is a follower of Jesus and gratefully relies on His grace. Having overcome perfectionism, she has embraced the imperfect excellence found in the ordinary life God has given her. Yvonne has homeschooled her children since 1998 and has helped them enjoy their unique gifts, while overcoming various learning and life challenges. Her therapy is writing, crocheting, swimming and laughing. She and her family reside in Brandon, Florida surrounded by four orphaned cats and a lovely, but bossy, labrador retriever. She blogs to encourage at Not Perfect - Just Ordinary.