relationships and community on Sacrificial Living

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, bu...

Humble Father, we admit to you tonight that our selfishness runs deeper than we know. Even in our service to others, we often expect a reward or result. We really only want to serve others when we see...

In The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her father needed to find a safer place for a Jewish mother and child they had been concealing from the Nazis. A local clergyman cam...

This total self-giving, to which the Son and the Spirit respond by an equal self-giving, is a kind of “death,” a first, radical “kenosis,” as one might say. It is a kind of “super-death” that is a com...

Let us ask God to make us true in our love, to make us sacrificial beings, for it seems to me that sacrifice is only love put into action.

Holy God, you have shown us the ultimate example of sacrificial love in Jesus. For Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Yet we think of ourselves more high...

On a beautiful April afternoon in 2008, two college softball teams faced off in a decisive playoff game beneath the Cascade Mountains. The Western Oregon Wolves battled Central Washington University, ...

In 2021, I heard a story on the radio about the “Kindest Family in America”. As far as I can see, this is the only year Parents magazine awarded such a prize. When I first heard this headline I rolled...

Cruciform love is welcoming the immigrant simply because they bear the image of God, even if the only thing they bring to us is hassle and possible harm. Cruciform love is praying for those who persec...

In 1987 director Bernardo Bertolucci released the film The Last Emperor to raving reviews. It was based on the autobiography of the last living emperor of the Manchu dynasty in China, Henry Aisin-Gior...

An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatibl...

I heard a story about a little boy who wanted to give God an offering but had nothing to give. He sat on the floor, watching people pass by and place their offerings in large wicker baskets. How he lo...

If you want to impact someone’s life, love them when they least expect it and least deserve it.

[Humility is] to become like Jesus in his willingness to choose the hidden way of love rather than the way of power.

Even if people reject the gospel, we still must love them. A good example of this was reported by Ralph Neighbour, pastor of Houston’s West Memorial Baptist Church (in Death And The Caring Community ...

Selfless love is always costly. Fear can’t afford it, pride doesn’t understand it, but friends never forget it.

Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God's call to love as he loved. It is a response to ...

We should always remember that love is the highest gift of God. All of our revelations and gifts are little things compared to love.... Settle in your heart that from this moment on you will aim at no...

Blessed is the man who gets the opportunity to devote his life to something bigger than himself and who finds himself surrounded by friends who share his passion.

You can always give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

The power of love is in the sacrifice and commitment it requires. Sacrifice and commitment always travel with love and action. Love looks like showing up with hands to help even when we don’t know wha...

At a funeral Mass for a friend of Archbishop Romero who was murdered by the government because of her faith in Christ, Romero invited those present to follow this Lord who died, this God who sacrifice...

There is a Gethsemane hid in all love

Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao, a village on the island of Molokai in Hawaii that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony...

Where love is the compelling power, there is no sense of strain or conflict or bondage in doing what is right: the man or woman who is compelled by Jesus' love and empowered by His Spirit does the...

Love ever gives, Forgives, outlives, And ever stands with open hands, And while it lives it gives. For this is love’s prerogative, To give – and give – and give.

Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

What we choose to love is very important for what we love leads our eyes, ears, and hearts on a pilgrimage that shapes the texture of our lives.