Title: Sacrificial Love
sacrificial love
Text: Romans 5:8
“God demonstrates his love for us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
A man happened to see two magpie chicks and loved them so much that he took them home and put them in a chicken coop. But what is so surprising is that from the next morning, the mother magpie took the risk and came to feed them several times a day and continued to raise these two young. So, after a few months, the pup gained weight and grew up healthy. One day the owner caught the mother, put her in the coop, and sent her two pups away. Then the baby flew away without looking back. He didn't come the next day, and he hasn't come until now.
After hearing this story, I realized two very valuable facts. First of all, if parents love their children even if there are dangers and difficulties, they will not forget them and bring them food like this, but the children are not. How many children know the grace of their parents? Another thing is that the Lord always cares for us and helps us. The Lord is the One who always brings and nourishes my food and clothes. He showed us noble love and sacrifice, even to the point of being nailed to the cross to set us free from everlasting death. When I think of our Lord, I can't help but be grateful for that grace.
“By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Pelicans are the most maternal among birds. When pelicans have no food to feed their young, they devour their own breasts. He ruptures his own veins to the sick and dying pups and pours their blood into their mouths. The mother pelican is willing to sacrifice her life for her young even when she is dying. That is why Westerners regarded the pelican as a symbol of love and sacrifice.
There is someone like a pelican who took on all the sins of mankind and bled instead. He came to this earth 2,000 years ago and took responsibility for all of mankind's sins. His name is Jesus Christ. Jesus was the one who shed His blood on the cross, bearing all the lies of human greed, pride, unbelief, and hatred alone. December 25th Christmas Day. People think of Christmas carols and Santa Claus and a great party on this day. However, they are forgetting the main character of the day, 'Baby Jesus'. This is a sad self-portrait of modern people.
“For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
“Therefore, be imitators of God, as loved children, and walk in love as Christ loved you” (Ephesians 5:1-2).
In Armenia, a part of the former Soviet Union, an earthquake struck 55,000 people. At this time, the 9th-floor apartment collapsed, leaving a mother named Susanna and her four-year-old daughter Guyani trapped in a gap between steel and concrete. They had been imprisoned for a long time, and Guyani lay next to his mother and kept spitting out one word: “Mom, I'm thirsty.” The mother, who was unable to move, remembered a TV scene where people in distress shared blood when they had nothing to eat or drink while contemplating how to hang their daughter. In the dark, the mother fumbled for a broken piece of glass, and without delay she tore her finger off and wet the daughter's lips with the blood. Two weeks passed and they were rescued dramatically.
2,000 years ago, for mankind, who could not avoid wrath and death, God prepared a way for us to live through his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The shedding of the noble blood of Jesus Christ is the starting point of our new life.
Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, we live in a new life. What a holy love and great grace is this? Let's be moved by the great love of the Lord, give praise and glory, and be faithful to death.
* Prayer: God, who is abundant in love and mercy, give us the faith to always give thanks for your love and grace and give us the faith to sacrificially carry out your mission. Believe that we can bear much fruit if we sacrifice for Christ and for the gospel, and let us become saints who sow the seeds of the gospel with love and sacrifice. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen