When I think of sacrifice, the first thing that comes to mind is the Cross. The next thing I think of is marriage.
Jesus laid down his life for us, in the ultimate act of selfless love. He calls us to do the same thing in our marriages, too — in dozens of ways every day. But it’s important to remember that Jesus’ posture of sacrifice is centrally one of love.
That posture of loving humility and self-sacrifice is our template for how to love selflessly in every part of our lives, but especially within marriage and family.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
Remember the encouragement of Ephesians 5: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Every day, intentionally, you get up and choose to serve your spouse. Every day, you choose to respond to God’s call to sacrificial love. Every day, you seek to love your spouse and others as Christ loved us.
Of course, that’s hard. It’s hard even in the best marriages and in the best circumstances.
My husband and I have been married for 17 years now, and we credit God’s immersive grace and our mutual, daily decisions to wake up and honor the covenant commitment we made before God and our family so long ago.
That said, as a counselor, I’ve seen a lot of marriages caught up in cycles of mutual hurt or selfishness. It’s not uncommon for couples to fall short of God’s call for mutual love, sacrifice and respect — but that’s because we’re all fallen, all broken.
But despite our selfish, sinful nature, God loves us unconditionally. And He has overcome both sin and death on our behalf. This is the powerful, transformative hope and joy of Easter: We can follow Him. We can be healed. We can learn to love each other well and learn to accept His love.
God gives us the power to break hurtful and sinful cycles of behavior, no matter how impossible that might feel. He has already made the ultimate gesture of sacrificial love, so that we can see it, know it and embrace it in our own lives.
But sacrifice isn’t a one-time deal. A lot of sacrificial love appears in what might seem like small or mundane parts of your life.
So, cultivating a posture of sacrificial love will often look very practical. Start by becoming an expert in your spouse. Help them become an expert in you. Learn to meet each other’s needs, console each other, support and guide one another; and as in Romans 12, “outdo one another in showing honor.”
It’s also important to be or become very, very intentional about communicating with your spouse. Listen well to them and listen with humility. Choose to put them first, even when it’s inconvenient.
Most importantly, place your relationship with Christ at the center of your marriage.
After all, there is more than one way to sacrifice for each other. There are the sacrifices we make for the other person, which is what most of us think when we imagine “sacrificial love,” but there are also sacrifices we make together, freely, out of love and commitment.
I really learned this lesson when my husband and I had our first child. We were both meticulous savers and spenders. We had a spreadsheet with the expected costs of every part of parenthood. But then we were surprised by our son’s week-long NICU stay — an incredibly large and unexpected cost.
So, we came together as a team. The two of us became aligned in our shared goal: Pay off our son’s medical bills.
And in our decision to pay them off — a decision that we made together — I had to sacrifice. I had to make his lunch every day. It might seem silly, but it speaks to the daily, small ways we often sacrifice as husbands and wives for the sake of a shared goal.
Imagine how much more weight the sacrifices you make together, freely, side-by-side with your spouse for Jesus’ sake must be. Those sacrifices are the ones that will carry your marriage through its hardest moments.
I know that God will help me bring that peace and grace into every part of my life — including my marriage. And He wants to bring that peace and grace into every part of every life.
His sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection, which we celebrate each Easter, are the ultimate proof of that.
Genee Francis is the Assistant Director, Content and Programming at WinShape Marriage.
