The Lord who died for us teaches us that sacrificing for another is really what it means to live and to love.

A friend of mine works as an ethno-linguist—he studies cultures through the way they communicate. When he was in graduate school, he began to consider how to turn his knowledge into profit. The apparent answer came at a school social.

Graduate students from throughout the university attended the party. This led to some good-natured sparring among those from different departments about the value of their respective career tracks. My friend fared poorly in the verbal competition because hardly anyone knew what an ethno-linguist was, and several doubted if this field of study really had any real “science” behind it.

Responding to a friendly challenge to prove the validity of his studies, my friend claimed that he could pick out the law students attending the party just by listening to their conversation. He succeeded! At the end of the party he had all of the lawyers-in-training fingered simply by the way they talked. His success at the party crystallized my friend’s plan for profit. He reasoned that since he could identify the speech pattern of lawyers, he should be able also to figure out how really successful lawyers talk. Then for fat fees he would teach this “successful speech” to attorneys hungry for their own career advancement. My friend was sure fame and fortune were right around the corner. His own studies soon convinced him otherwise. He discovered that attorneys who really succeed depend on actions, not words.

What is true of law is also true of love: those whose love succeeds depend on actions not words. That is really the core of the Apostle John’s message about our relationships. He writes:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:16-18).

The wisdom of the apostle echoes in our observations of marriages all around us. Everyone starts out saying the right words:

“I love you.”
“This is forever.”
“I’ll never forsake you.”

The problem is that couples cannot depend on words alone to keep them together. Words are too slippery. My wife and I went shopping for a washing machine a couple of years ago and discovered how words slip in meaning. We found out that if the capacity of a washer is listed as “large,” that means small. If washers are listed as “extra large”—that means medium. Only washers with the words “super large” are large.

Words can also have different meanings for different people in their marriage commitments. For some “forever” means for a real long time. For others “till death does us part” means until our affections die. For some the promise to stay united “in sickness and in health” means as long as you don’t make me too miserable for too long and the problems we face are not your fault.

The Need for Actions

What secures true love if words cannot? The apostle answers when he says not to love with lip service but “with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). There is no question about the type of actions John has in mind. He explains this in a previous verse where he offers his own definition of love: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (v. 16).

John defines love by sacrifice. The preeminent example he offers is that of Jesus who willingly gave up His glory and privileges to suffer on the cross for your good and mine. John goes on to say that “we ought to lay down our lives” for each other (v. 16) and offers the concrete example of sharing our material possessions with those in need as embodying this type of love (v. 17).

No mystery lies in applying these truths to marriage. The love that secures this most intimate of relationships must also be sacrificial. Of course God does not expect us physically to die for each other every day. We are, however, to die to self each day. The satisfaction of our own needs and desires cannot be the primary reason we enter, nor continue in, marriage.

In Christian marriage each individual’s actions have an other focus. Manipulation, intimidation, and deceit for personal gain have no place here. Such actions will destroy true love even if they secure personal advantages for a time. The Bible simply puts before us the wonderful mystery of human happiness that in the giving of self lie life’s greatest gains. The greatest love grows where self is served the least, for example, comforting each other’s sorrows, working to understand each other’s needs, and forgiving one another.

The Truth That Counts

These last words about forgiveness are important for they remind us that all these instructions sound easy until we disappoint, frustrate, or sin against each other—then loving actions become enormous challenges. Not only do we have trouble forgiving, but the very fact that we find this divine imperative a struggle reveals the spiritual weakness in each heart.

That is why the apostle John tells us to love “in truth” as well as in deed. That “truth” involves more than dealing with one another in integrity. Each of us must also face a vital truth about ourselves: We are far less capable of selfless love than we dare to confess.

Personal satisfaction, control, and advancement dominate our thoughts and pursuits. Even our care for one another cannot rid itself of the motives of recompense and recognition. If you do not believe this, then simply remember the rage that filled your heart that last time you went the extra mile for a spouse or a child and no one said thank you.

John tells us about the sacrifice of Jesus, not merely to give us an example to mimic but to remind us of our guilt that He must cover. Yet in this reminder there is more than the exposure of truth about us; there is also the revelation of a God who is for us. In the sacrifice of His Son, our God reveals His selfless desire to bless His children. Our God gains nothing in the deal of providing His Son to take the penalty for our guilt.

Full understanding of our Lord’s selflessness ultimately engenders in us those attributes lacking in our own love that will make it last. First, as we humbly contemplate the forgiveness that God freely gives us, we discover how hypocritical it is to receive undeserved pardon and, then, not offer it (see Matthew 18:21-35). Then, in recognition of our own need for forgiveness, we discover the willingness to forgive that heals and seals our relationships. This is why love has a chance despite the inescapable truth of personal selfishness that we each must confess.

As wonderful as it is to discover and share the truths of our Savior’s forgiveness, this is not the end of our blessing. As we forgive others and our perception of the reality of our Savior’s pardon deepens, our desire to honor Him naturally increases. Then as we honor Him with our lives, something else very special happens. We discover to our delight that by loving the Lord who created marriage, our love for our spouses has the greatest opportunity to grow.

When our first son was small, he loved to walk through the church parking lot between his mother and me. We would each hold one of his hands, and then on cue he would lift his feet. He would giggle while his legs dangled in the air between us. But he would whoop for pure joy when we would swing him back and forth until his feet actually went above our heads. The higher we swung him, the greater was his delight.

Something else also happened with each swing of our child. Not only did we lift our son higher, but we were inevitably drawn closer together by the physical forces engaged in doing so. When two lives in a marriage lift the Son of God in honor, similar dynamics occur—the higher we lift Him, the closer we grow. By honoring Him, our hearts are changed, our priorities come more in line with His purposes, our selfishness withers, and our forgiveness grows.

The Lord who died for us teaches us that when we give of ourselves for another—dying to ourselves in the process—we discover what it really means to live, and enjoy most fully what it really means to love. Our Lord makes our lives as sweet as heaven desires by drawing our hearts together in love for Him.