I wonder if Jesus really thought about our salvation as a sacrifice or more like a privilege, an honor to lay down His life to spend eternity with His friends?
For the joy – the holy privilege – set before Him, Jesus was honored to come in like a King and die like a thief for us.
I heard myself the other day listing off all of the daily sacrifices I make for those I love – how I feel like I’m the one that has to remain present, flexible and constantly serving. I was complaining, feeling unimportant, slightly used, and unthanked.
The Holy Spirit stopped me in my tracks to correct my word “sacrifice,” letting me know it wasn’t true.
“These things are really a privilege given from me to you in love,” the Holy Spirit reminded my heart.
On a daily basis, privilege from the Lord for us could look like:
* Being home with a sick child.
* Waiting on good plans because God says to.
* Caring for an aging parent.
* Laundry. All the laundry.
* Serving in marriage.
* Changing a calendar for others.
* Volunteering in a thankless ministry.
I’m learning when we think we are sacrificing, we start to think about ourselves and what we are giving up or missing out on. But the privilege given to us by the Holy Spirit is the very thing we long for – to love God and love others. Privilege is the ability to actively love in our daily lives.
Jesus said in Matthew 9:13 that He doesn’t want our sacrifices, He wants us to be merciful. It’s not a sacrifice of our time, energy, or heart, but a privilege to act upon the love we have been given by Jesus to share.
So, if it feels like a “sacrifice” as you serve tirelessly, change that one word. It’s really the privilege of active love – an overflowing of the Holy Spirit’s love that’s been poured into us. We have the privilege to serve, share, wait, help, and be patient in love.
We can’t have faith on our own – or show mercy or patience or love. The sacrifice of ourselves is picking up our cross and following Jesus. But then, that is the privilege we are called to, our very mission, as the ones privileged enough to be called the Daughters of the King of all Kings.
Our mindset needs to shift to know we are the privileged ones, given the opportunity to serve, to forget about ourselves and think of only the other, to be stripped of the world and know that Jesus is with us, holding us up, going before us and pouring in His love so we have something to give.
Privilege translates into an honor to serve and quickly turns into an opportunity for our crowning moment.
And they lay their crowns before the throne and say, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.” (Revelation 4:10b-11)
