Who knew love was so expensive?
Take marriage for instance. My initial view of marriage was extremely limited. You share meals, a bed and a house. Throw in holding hands, romantic dates, and some occasional roses. This isn't hard, I'm in love! This view of marriage is not wrong, just incomplete. Marriage is more than one long romantic evening at an expensive restaurant. Marriage is doing dishes and vacuuming when they're the last thing you feel like doing. It's giving a back rub until your fingers hurt and not asking for one in return. You apologize when you're wrong, repent when you sin. When you're in a rotten mood, as much as you feel like wallowing in your own rotten mood, you pray and fix your attitude because you don't want to hurt the other person. Marriage is more servanthood than romance. No one wants to take long walks on the beach with a selfish jerk anyway.
Loving the body of Christ is another good example. Doesn't everybody love their church? Attend service regularly, tithe a little, enjoy the services and help out when you can. Loving the church God's called you to is so much more. You confront sin even if you don't feel like it. And the confrontation is done humbly with a genuine desire to win back your brother. It's so much easier to gossip or wait for a long list of problems to accumulate than to actually talk to the person. Someone has to take out the trash, do little projects and set up the chairs. No one likes to spend time with people who are different (visitors, older people, kids--anybody who's not like me). And if things aren't going the way you want, you love people more and make sure you're a part of the solution. Even if it's easier to leave and find a church where everything's easier. Loving a church is more sacrifice than attendance. Jesus never loved us by sitting in a pew or running from our problems.
Here's the amazing thing, we all talk about love but rarely practice it. Somehow we've tricked ourselves into thinking that genuine love can exist without significant sacrifice. Everyone wants a bracelet with Jesus' name on it, but few want to carry His cross. Words like self-denial, obedience, servanthood and obedience don't sound cute enough for a lot of praise choruses. The love of Jesus wasn't cheap. And he has the bloody scars to prove it.
