“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NLT
There is nothing more valuable to God than us. That is why He sent Jesus. He sacrificed the most important thing in order to gain us back. God knew that His investment would result in the highest return, but it had to cost Him something in the beginning and for a brief moment in time, knowing full well that it was worth the sacrifice.
J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan once said: “Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
If we are honest with ourselves, sacrifice is not something we like to hear or do. If you are like me, sometimes you find yourself trying to figure out a way to not have to give something up (like my time, money, or energy) in order to maintain what is valuable. I think that often times we make compromises in regard to what we really want in order to avoid making sacrifices to keep what is most valuable to us. It ends up costing us more in the long run.
My wife and I have 3 kids currently attending Calvin Christian. Aside from my relationship with Christ and my wife, there aren’t many things in life that are more valuable than my children. As a parent, I believe that I have a responsibility of raising them to be successful adults in all areas of life. For my wife and I, the spiritual and educational aspect of raising our kids is very important. That is the main reason we chose to send our children to Calvin Christian – because Calvin does both well.
I still remember the moment that solidified that decision for the 2 of us. We were attending a back to school night when our oldest son was in first grade. I remember his teacher telling the parents how she would come in every morning before the students arrived and stand behind one of the little desks and pray for that child for 30 minutes. At that moment, I realized that what was already valuable to us as parents, was also valuable to this school. We were both sold, committed and were determined to maintain this valuable relationship with Calvin Christian. Now mind you, this was before we had 2 other children, not fully realizing the cost that it would take to maintain this relationship. And every time it got challenging, and almost seemed like it would not work out having another attend, we reminded ourselves of what is valuable to us and what we are willing to do to maintain it. It does get hard, but we know that this sacrifice will have it’s reward, and most importantly that God will help us. The best part is, that He has helped us every step of the way.
“What you compromise to gain, you will eventually lose”. This was something that a former employer told me when I was a younger man. How true it is, even to this day. How many times in my own life have I compromised just to save some money, time or whatever? It ended up costing me more in the end. We all have done it and have some regrets as well. That is why it is important to continue to sacrifice to keep having what is valuable.
I leave you with this thought. Philippians 3:14 tells us to press on towards the goal. No matter how hard the sacrifice might be, keep it, because the rewards for that sacrifice will eventually outweigh the cost of it.
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This is a repost from 2015