Love=Inconvenience

I love this quote so much that I've actually entertained thoughts of getting it tattooed on my body (I'm not going to... but...). 

It sums up so well what everyday love looks like. It takes out the gushy feelings and the prerequisite of liking someone to love them. It shows that love is an action, a choice. Love has to do with me and how I act and what I do, not with how the other person makes me feel. It has to do with my response to situations, not the situations themselves. 

Love is serving when I don't feel like it, love is going out of my way to help another, love is inconveniencing myself for the sake of someone else. 

Easter is right around the corner, and if there's any greater example of how love is inconvenient, I don't know it. Jesus died and rose again for you, for me. He didn't do it because it was the convenient, easy thing to do. He didn't do it because we were so lovely and wonderful and created all these gushy feeling in Him. 

He did it because He loves us so much that He was willing to serve, go out of His way, inconvenience Himself, and ultimately sacrifice His life for us. He did it because His Father loves us so much that He was willing to send His only Son to save us, wretched sinners that we are. 1 John 4:10 puts it this way—

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God sacrificed His Son, Jesus sacrificed His life. Both were enormous inconveniences, and both showed us their love. Both sacrifices have made a way for us to have new life and eternal relationship with our Maker.

This Easter, I'm thankful that God didn't only love us when it was convenient. I'm thankful that Jesus ultimately said "Not my will, but yours be done" in that garden so long ago. I'm thankful that we have the highest example of love as inconvenience. I'm thankful that I don't have to try and love like that in my own power.

I'm thankful that Jesus came to earth, lived a sinless life, died on the cross to carry my sin and shame, rose again three days later, ascended to heaven where He now sits at the right hand of God, and invites me into relationship with Him and offers me eternal life. And the offer and invitation are for any who would receive it!  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12). We can trust Him, because He is worthy of our trust. He loves us beyond measure!