Reality

So this whole sacrifice thing just seems like a lot, right? Monday we're being slaughtered. Tuesday we're giving birth. Wednesday, we have a cross strapped to our backs. Thursday, we die. Friday, we're stooping and serving and sacrificing...oh, but wait. Jesus has done all these things (except for giving birth, but work with me), and he's done them with more pain and more blood and more death than we could ever imagine.

"This whole sacrifice thing" doesn't seem like so much when the story of Christ stops being a story and starts being a reality. That's when I stop picturing the story of Jesus as him making a lot of people happy and then getting some cuts on his back and having to suffer a bit on a cross so that my sins are forgiven. No, the reality is that Jesus raised people from the dead, fed thousands, healed lepers. The reality is Jesus sweat blood in the garden, terrified of taking on the anger of God that I've never had to experience because he did that for me. The reality is that he was killed on a cross because he had to be so he could have a relationship with me. The reality is a perfect God died for a really screwed up person like me.

So what else can I do be sacrifice everything for him? When that's our reality, what else can we do but say that our comfort doesn't matter, our glory doesn't matter?

The way we are called to live ONLY makes sense in light of who Jesus is and what he did. And then it's the only thing that makes sense.