Man was made in God’s image. And God took man’s form to be God with Us. Perhaps an odd topic to meditate on in December, but I have been thinking this month on the nature of God. I realized how much I was believing a “Christian myth”—a lie that sounds Biblical but is still a lie. In response to that lie, I have been focusing on Truth: Who is God? And how have I been made in His image?
God, a distinct entity, states clearly His likes and dislikes, what He will accept and not accept, and how He will respond to things He will not accept. He does not force others to follow His way; He merely invites them to and states the consequences if they cross His boundaries. Complete in Himself, He still enjoys relationships. This isn’t astounding. All of Scripture communicates these ideas. But what I just realized was that since I am made in that image, those things (boundaries) are good for me, too. Somehow, I started believing the lie that taking care of my own needs was selfish. After all, love sacrifices, and love should care more about others than self. The model for sacrificial love is God: the Father loved us so much that He sacrificed His Son; the Son loved us so much that He sacrificed Himself. But, note the verb tense: not sacrifices. Sacrificed. Yes, Christ came, becoming man, but He was still fully God. His sense of Who He was never changed. He did not, nor does not, change for His loved ones. His likes and dislikes stay the same. His position changed temporarily (heaven for earth), but His character does not waver. His actions changed temporarily (sleeping, living as a human), but His boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable remain steadfast. Love came down to die, but He lived before dying. He did not lead a life of negating every need, emotion, and opinion in the name of sacrificial love. That isn’t living. A person with no needs, desires, emotions, or opinions—that person cannot love anyone because that person is dead. I believed that sacrificial love was constantly denying myself for others. But, my rational mind cried out, where is the line? I could not sustain a lifetime of sacrificing all of me. Christ sacrificed once; His public ministry, although physically taxing, lasted only three years. How could I, a mere mortal, expect to last longer than God with Us? How could I distinguish between others’ needs and others’ wants? When I voiced concerns about knowing where the line was, I heard criticism about being too used to getting my own way and that if I spent more time serving others, then I would feel better. So, I continued to act on those lies, ignoring my physical comfort for someone else (because love sacrifices), ignoring my true needs for someone else (because love sacrifices), and denying my own desires (because love seeks not its own). With no needs or desires, I felt like I ceased to be. Mercifully, not all my relationships succumbed to these lies. I noticed that in these relationships I was wholly myself, a glaring contrast to the fragmented shadow I was in others. Desperate to be whole again, I turned to the model of sacrificial love. Who is this God Who can sacrifice Himself and not lose Himself? When did He sacrifice? What did He sacrifice? Christ did “what we could not do for ourselves,” I read one day and then read it again. “Denying ourselves to do for others what they cannot do for themselves is showing the sacrificial love of Christ. This is what Christ did for us. . . . he saved us.” All this time, I was sacrificing myself for others’ whims, things they could get without my sacrifice. Looking at what Christ (and His followers) sacrificed for added more clarity: they sacrificed most often for the sake of the gospel. Especially around the holidays, I sacrifice time, energy, rest, and money in the name of love, spurred by sweet stories of sacrifice, but I can place a boundary around that sacrifice—what am I sacrificing for? I can still agree with the reformed Ebenezer Scrooge that “mankind [is] my business,” but I can temper that sentiment with my true responsibility to mankind: sacrificing for true needs, sacrificing to point to Christ.
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