No Greater Love

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:12–13 (ESV)

If you are reading this post, odds are that you can identify with this statement from Christ. As those with a desire and calling to defend life, we likely esteem the idea of being ready, willing, and able to lay down our own lives for those we love. Not that we have a death wish or a desire to throw our lives away at the earliest opportunity, but rather we long to possess the character and the love that it would take to sacrifice our own lives in defense of our wife, children, friends, etc. 

This is indeed an honorable goal. It is a goal that I strive toward each and every day. On the flip side of the coin, I’m challenged regularly on how much I actually lay down my life on a daily basis for my family. It’s sometimes much easier to idealize going out in a blaze of glory defending my family from attackers than it is to make the small choices to lay down my life loving and serving my wife and children day in and day out. 

In the words of Robert Lewis in the men’s study, “Men’s Fraternity”, we are called to “die to live”. This is one of the paradoxes of Scripture. It is only through picking up our cross daily, following Christ and dying to ourselves that we are able to truly live the life that Christ desires for us. 

While a big part of this ministry is preparing you to defend yourself and those around you from violent attacks, I want to just as much emphasize the calling believers have to lay down our lives for our those closest to us. Not only in a one time act of valor, but each day of our lives. Don’t ignore the mundane to seek the heroic. For it’s in the simple obedience to be a servant leader that you are truly preparing for something more. Even King David started off serving his family by keeping the sheep. 

Remember today as you go about your business to lay down your lives in the small things. Be a servant leader. Die to live.  

Be blessed, 

- Isaac Costley