What's love got to do with it?

While we were in Curitiba I watched way to many movies
and to much TV on the internet.
I also did a lot of reading, studying and talking.
What else is a person suppose to do when sitting
with one leg elevated because of an injury?!

Anyway, I watched this show,
not necessarily one I would recommend to anyone,
that was about a family.
Right in the beginning of the show the father of this family dies of a heart attack
and after his death secrets of his life begin to be revealed.
Like - he had another family. A mistress for 20+ years.

The family is pretty shaken from this revelation
but the one hit the hardest by it is, of course,
his wife. The mother. The widow.

She had always thought, and so had everyone else,
that they had one of those wonderful, loved filled marriages.
Now, understandably so, she is wondering what the truth is.
Had her whole adult life been a lie?

In one scene she is crying. Hard, gut retching tears.
Her daughter tries to comfort her by saying,

"you know he loved you."

And she replied,

"yes, but he didn't give up anything to do it!"

I was so struck by that line that I paused the show and wrote it down.

It impacted me.

The idea that you need to give something up
in order to love.

I cheered on that romantic notion. Of course, loving is about dying to self.
It didn't take a genius to see that this particular man
hadn't loved at any expense to himself.
Just when it suited his purposes.
Just as long as he got something out of it.
And - is that really loving at all?

So it made me think:
Does love always cost something?

It is always best to go to the source in order
to know the truth
and so I went to God.
The source of love.
No, He is more than that.

God is love.

1Jo 4:8

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Wow! In looking further I saw that He had definitely given up a lot to love me.

To love you. Eph 2:4-10, I John 4:10

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

God, because He is so gentle with me,
left me to stew on that for a few months.
And then, a couple of weeks ago,
He brought it to the fore-fronts of my mind again.

I read this:

what Richard Stearns points out from Scripture, from David’s example and the widow’s two mites, is that it doesn’t matter how much we give, what matters is what it costs. What matters is our faith.

Our current giving costs us nothing. The bottom line is our current giving does not require us to live by faith. Now, please hear me that God calls all of us to different things. This is why we CANNOT COMPARE our giving with someone else’s. All we can do is look at ourselves and ask, Does my current giving cost me anything? Does my current giving require me to life by faith? And, it’s worth noting, that this is true of all giving–our time, our talents, and our treasure. It’s so much bigger than money, but where our treasure is there our heart will be too.

http://www.karipatterson.com/?p=1115

I am challenged to consider my monetary giving.

I do give but only to the point of it pinching a little.

I don't allow it to affect my life too much.

But beyond that, I believe that God is asking me to consider more.

The entirety of my life.

My time, my talents, my interests. What I invest in.

To mature in my love for Him. To allow it to cost me.

Mar 8:34

And when he had called the people [unto him] with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Dying to self. Jesus' greatest act of love.