The True Nature of Sacrificial Love

Sacrificial love does not mean that husbands give wives anything and everything they want. “Sacrifice” has nothing to do with what those who are being sacrificed for “want,” but what those who are doing the sacrificing “want” (i.e., “value.”) For, “to devote with loss” is the meaning of sacrifice. It is the giving up of something of value for another.

Christ does not give us anything and everything that we want. In fact, He loves us too much for that. We often have no idea about what we really need, and what we want is often not the best for us. He does, however, know and gives us all that we truly need and more, “abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).

Christ did not sacrifice to His Body what they “wanted.” Rather, His sacrifice was a giving up of what He “wanted.”

O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as You will (Matthew 26:39).

The nature of divine sacrifice is that which has a disregard to one’s own wants or needs and focuses on the will of the Father and the needs of the one being served and for whom the sacrifice is made.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, being rich, because of you He became poor, that you, by His poverty, should be rich (II Corinthians 8:9).

We are thankful that Christ is not like some men who are so foolish as to think that all that they need to do as a husband is to allow their wives the honor of living with them while refraining from abusing them. Such men are not Christ-like husbands but self-centered, bringing shame to the Christ Whom they have been called to model to their wives.

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
(Excerpted from his upcoming book, Wife Loving)