Here's the difference between the way in which Christians today define love and the way in which Jesus defined it not that long ago.
Love is in these days. Everybody talks about love, it seems like we are all in agreement that we just need to be more loving. Not that we're doing too bad of a job of it… we'd all like to believe we're pretty caring people. Even more interesting to those who pay a little closer attention, is the fact that Christians and those of other faiths seem to be talking about the same thing when they talk about love. It seems that love is demonstrated in a willingness to sacrifice should the need arise. It is a willingness to give to those who cross our paths. Walking down Queen Street I demonstrate love by stopping to buy lunch for the squeegie kids. Heck, I love my family so much that, should the need arise, I would even die for them., If someone were to fire a gun, I'd jump into the line of fire – that sort of thing.
Unfortunately for us Christians I think Jesus is talking about something very different when he spoke about love. This isn't lost on the authors of the New Testament. In “Romans” 5 Paul says this:
“But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
A little later John writes in “1 John” 3:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”
The words sound familiar, the examples equally so, but something radically different is going on here. We have defined love by the willingness to make sacrifices as we cross paths with those in need. Yet this is not love as God has modeled it to us. It is not simply that humanity (and the rest of creation) was headed in one direction, God in another, our paths crossed, Jesus died, and we both keep going our separate ways. No. Fallen humanity was journeying away from God. Yet God demonstrated his love by deliberately placing himself in our path. God went and sought us out.
And that's where the difference lies. As Christians we are not called to give as the need arises. We are called to go out and discover that need – not simply address it as we stumble upon it. That's why we are called to lay down our lives. It is in our living that we pay the price. It is about living a sacrificial life, not simply dying a sacrificial death. The question is no longer, “What are you giving?” but rather, “What are you holding back?” Then the language Jesus used, the language about crosses, about sacrifice, about suffering, starts making sense in hard and practical ways. It's not simply flowery rhetoric, it's the cost of discipleship.
When Jesus tells the famous story of the “Good Samaritan” he concludes by asking, “Who was the neighbor of the robbed man?” The man who was questioning him (remember this takes place in context of the command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”) responds by saying, “The one who showed mercy.” Jesus then says, “You have answered correctly. Go and do likewise.” Love is demonstrated by placing ourselves in the paths of those who have suffered, love is demonstrated in seeking out the wounded – not just waiting until we stumble upon them (which we hardly do. Mostly because we are untrustworthy and unsafe and so those around us never share their stories with us).

So Jude asks me, “Where is the joy in carrying our cross? Where is the joy that comes with dying? All this talk about grief and suffering, how does this idea of the joy of the Lord being within us fit into that picture?”
It's a tough question. One that I've struggled with a long time, and mostly ended up ignoring because I was never fully satisfied with the answers I could think of. Now I feel like I've started to discover an answer, it came through one of those, “can't see the forest for the trees” sort of moments.
As I told the guys at the shelter I was leaving, a lot of them made comments about how positive a presence I was, how I always had a ready smile, that sort of thing. One of my best friends there said to me, “Man, you're the happiest person I know.” I got to thinking about this and remembered how kids at the drop-in had said the same thing when I left there, “You've always got a smile for me… no matter how the day is going you're always happy to see us.” These people see me as a joyful person.
Which is funny because all my friends from Christian circles tend to see me as sad or critical or pessimistic. That's also the way I've always tended to see myself. I feel like I spend far more time “mourning with those who mourn” than “rejoicing with those who rejoice.”
And that's when it hit me. In my reflections on this I discovered the joy we have in the midst of carrying crosses. I feel like the cross I carry is often the suffering and grief of the homeless, abandoned and oppressed that I journey with. Yet these are people I love dearly. Of course I smile when I see them, it's a delight for me to see them. Of course I laugh with them, they're beautiful and brilliant. Therein lies the joy. I am journeying in love relationships. I love these men, these kids, these people, and – amazingly – they love me! How can the joy that brings me not be reflected in my relationships with them?
So there the paradox finds its resolution. On one hand there is a genuine cross and a deep suffering that comes with journeying with people who are broken at a level I will never experience. On the other hand there is genuine joy and delight that comes with journeying with beautiful and brilliant people that I love and that love me.
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*Taken from the title of a C.S. Lewis book. He means it in a different way but, dang, it's such an appropriate quote for this situation.

I was sitting talking on the porch with an LIT and she was asking about my work and began telling me how her and her friends would volunteer at Sanctuary. She was talking about her desire to love people, her desire to help but her feeling of inadequacy,
“I meet these people, I listen to your stories and I think, 'how can I offer these people anything? How can I empathize?' I've always had it really good. I've never gone through anything bad.”
I've often struggled with feeling that way. I've asked myself the same questions, I used to think that I needed to run away, lose myself in the streets, go through every type of hell, so that then I would be able to come alongside of people who were suffering. Then I would be able to say, “I understand,” then I would be able to say, “let's get through this together.” Then I would be able to at least offer companionship, and they would not be so alone.
Of course to even feel such things shows how little we understand suffering. Say such a thing to someone who has suffered deeply and they'll look at you like you're crazy.
“You don't know what you're saying. I never want anybody to go through anything close to what I've gone through.”
And then, talking with this LIT, I realized something. It was Jesus who surrendered everything to enter into our suffering and bring us out of it. It is Jesus who can truly empathize, who can truly offer companionship and comfort. And then I realized, it is Jesus in us, Jesus in me, that the people I work with recognize. It is because I have Christ in me that I can come alongside of those who are suffering and offer them something. I always want it to be me who makes the difference, me who is significant, but really, it's Jesus in me that these people recognize, it's Jesus who makes the difference.
And that's why I can still do the work I do. That's why I can still journey with the people that I love, and that love me – without having to go through the hell that they have experienced.

Well, I usually try and stay away from this sort of debate but my brother asked me about my thoughts on the “once saved, always saved” debate and I ended up coming to a completely new (at least to me) conclusion. Usually I just point out that people focused on this question are completely missing the point of what it means to live as a member of the people of God, so I was talking about that with my brother when I had this idea.
I think that it is correct to say we are once saved, always saved. However (and this is the kicker), the question then follows, when does salvation occur? And here's the thing – salvation has not yet been fully enacted. Not for any of us. The completion of salvation occurs when Jesus returns and enacts judgment over the living and the dead. Therefore, when judgment results in grace, when we are not damned to the experience of God's wrath, THEN we are saved. Until then we only have the hope of salvation. So of course it is once saved always saved. Once God judges in our favor we are saved, and once we enter into the consummated kingdom we are always saved. But until then we only have the hope of salvation.
All this, of course, makes us rethink the popular Christian understanding of the moment you ask Jesus into your heart being the moment when you are saved. Actually it makes us rethink a lot of popular Christianity's ideas about what it means to be a Christian. Maybe, all of a sudden, we're starting to discover what the point really is. The question of how much can I get away with now that I'm saved, is transformed to the question of how I should live as a member of a people defined by hope.

I've often been puzzled by the command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Why is the “love yourself” part included? I've heard several speakers suggest that it means we should think of others the way we think of ourselves, appealing to the fact that we are all fallen and are often selfish, wanting only the best for ourselves. So, they say, we should want the best for others. They then go on to point out how self-love is then the first step toward loving others. If you don't love yourself then you can't love others.
That's never really made too much sense to me. I mean, if our journey with Christ is about surrender, and sacrifice why would something based on selfishness be the foundation of one of our central commandments? And then I realized that maybe Jesus means that commandment exactly the other way around. Maybe he means that the grace we show to others should also be the grace by which we view ourselves. For a long time I struggled with accepting God's forgiveness for my sins. I was able to forgive others but I always felt guilty, always felt like I was somehow worse. I think what Jesus is saying is that we need to recognize that we live under the same grace that we extend to others. That means that we come to the exact opposite conclusion: loving others is the first step toward accepting ourselves. If we don't love others we can't love ourselves.

I've frequently heard a proverb that goes something like this:
“Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.”
It's often used to illustrate the need to want the right things. The illustration of drug addicts is often used to reinforce this point, these people want the wrong thing and it ends up killing them. The emphasis is therefore on the first word, “Sometimes what we want will end up killing us.” Therefore if we want the right things we'll live a long and happy life. I've started to think this statement is completely misleading. I've started to think that maybe we need to remove the “sometimes” from that saying.
“The things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.”
I think that if we want the right things in life, they also will be the things that kill us. As Christians, we are called to follow Jesus and that means taking up a cross, and that means dying. Following Jesus will kill us. Want the right things and we may end up living the opposite of a long and happy life.
All of us, in one way or another, are laying down our lives for something. It's just a question of what we're dying for.