Into the Fire

Continuing the promotion for Tedd Dekker’s Immanuel’s Veins, the publicity department at Thomas Nelson has requested participants in the CFBA Tour to ask and/or answer the thematic question of the story: What is sacrificial love?

There is no sacrificial love like the One determining sacrifice of Jesus Christ. No one can equal it in any human sacrificial act, no matter how noble, how benevolent, how consequential. Soldiers sacrifice their lives every day for two reasons. They’re bound to duty. They’re bound to protect and defend. Whether or not they “love” those for whom they give their lives—and for sure they do love some of us—they love their country and for what it stands. But none of them can erase the evil that flows through the veins of the human race including their own. Their blood—and ours—is not holy and sinless and cannot eternally redeem those for whom their lives are sacrificed.

Most decent parents would gladly give their lives if it meant saving their child or children. Many friends would do the same for their friends. And husbands for their wives, wives for their husbands. We desire to somehow extend the lives of those we love, and if in the mystery of survival their lives depend on us, sometimes we gather up the courage to offer up our own lives if possible. I think we make it too casual in our minds. The instinct God gave us to fight for life can be overpowering. Until it wilts and becomes secondary to whatever entices us to give it up.

Sometimes we attach all kinds of meaningless definitions to “sacrificial love”. Words that don’t communicate the depth of what’s required in a sacrifice. Giving something up doesn’t cut it. Few things in reality cause an individual to willingly offer his/her life as a sacrifice.

Religion creates a strange mentality. Strapping on explosives in hopes of umpteen virgins eagerly waiting after detonation is a curious inspiration for murder/suicide. I know little of what awaits a female when she explodes in a murderous act. Somehow a bunch of virgin men doesn’t create quite the same image. But something must, I guess.

It’s quite a different element when you’re restrained and tortured and threatened to give up your faith. Perhaps this is what true sacrificial love is reduced to or elevated to. To stand firm in your faith in the face of terrible, excruciating pain, knowing death can’t come soon enough but awaiting the arms of Jesus Christ when it’s all said and done. Those who endure such horror for the Lord deserve that special place the Lord holds just for them.

What is sacrificial love? Really.

Thank you, God. Jesus, you gave it all for me. Spirit of God, you drew me to Him. Magnificent Lord of all.