Love is a big and common word in our world. I think it is often used when a synonym would be more appropriate or even a descriptive phrase. I love you could really mean like, attracted, lust, desire, admire, respect or other like terms. My mind is set on the definition of love that does not have any “give to get” in it. I feel that true love is a giver without thought of receiving. It is sacrificial in nature. The love chapter in the Bible is beautiful if you are on the receiving end and expensive if you are on the giving end. It gives without taking or requiring. It costs your life.

I’ll use the name Barney because I don’t and haven’t had any friends named Barney. Barney was a high school chum and one of the most inconvenient people I’ve ever known. He came to my house in elementary school to spend the night. We stole cigarettes. We poked holes in my window screen upstairs so we could poke out the cigarettes if someone came, and they did. Dad came stampeding upstairs, threw open the door, flipped on the light, and saw the cloud of smoke in the room. Then he saw the holes in the screen and ran yelling downstairs. My window was right over the fuel oil tank that was walled in with the ground under it thick with dry leaves. Dad got the fire out until he returned to us. Then, he was in flames. My friendship with Barney was like that until he died some years ago. I loved him like a brother without any reason I can define.

Marriage is like that. There is a lot of “I get” in marriage. Some of the “I get” comes at my wife’s expense without her getting any dividends in return. She loves as a gift with no payment required. I am grateful and grateful for her example. I want to be like her and others like her who are beautiful in giving. They are examples of Jesus. Jesus has given without our ability to repay in any way at all. There is no way to earn His love or pay Him back.

Here is the irony. Jesus’s expectation or request is that we accept Him and His gift so we can receive more. Accepting His gift is like my receiving my wife’s. It produces change in me. The generosity makes me desire to be better and do better because I can see and experience the true value of the gift. Relationship with Jesus is the gift that keeps on receiving and models a life that keeps on giving.