Love has lost its true meaning.

In modern cultural language, love is often replaced by the complexities of sexuality.

During my time as a youth pastor, I witnessed too many teenagers have a revolving door of partners, whom they supposedly loved. They would return the statement of I love you, but really meant to say I lust you. This has not changed since then.

In fact, it has become more complex, as the LGBTQ+ movement has become mainstream. The partners and problems related to determining the difference between love and lust have only increased, with little hope in sight.

Love is connected to sacrifice, lust isn’t.

When discussing the topic of love, it’s vital for Believers to connect with God’s design and purpose for love. In 1 John 3, God calls John to write some incredible words of wisdom, on loving one another. Consider his first words in this chapter.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us…” (3:1)

John speaks of God’s love before our call to love. Soon after, we read John’s shift in focus toward our duty to love each other.

He warns us, “do not be surprised…if the world hates you“. (3:13)

Clearly, showing love to people who do not know Christ, will not always have great returns. John wants to be clear that our lives must reflect Christ’s love always; despite the outcome of showing that love.

Within that context, from my perspective, the crux of this passage is found in verses 16 to 20, where John seems to move to his central idea.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (3:16)

This causes a shift in desire.

John’s focus on Jesus reminds us that true love is wrapped up in sacrifice, and the laying down of our desires. Which is absolutely crazy in our modern me-first culture! Nevertheless, this is the pursuit of the Christian; the highest form of showing love. We should strive for this kind of love.

This concept reminds me of Francis Chan‘s book, “Crazy Love“. Chan emphasizes that sacrificial love is the greatest love that humanity can ever fathom. Looking at Christ’s example, He died out of an eternal sacrificial love, which is Crazy Love!

Chan challenges us as Believers, to think about this eternal sacrificial love every day of our lives. While driving to work or wandering around a grocery store; to allow that thought to saturate our minds, and think about how it might be lived out.

Lust is not sacrificial.

Coming back to our modern cultural problem. I believe that an understanding of sacrifice is at the core of addressing the difference between love and lust. It addresses the revolving partner problem and the core issues of the LGBTQ+ movement. We lay down our lustful desires to pursue God’s design for sacrificial love toward all people.

This should be repeated 10-fold when we’re pursuing a partnership for life, in which sex will be a beneficial component. Sacrifice to wait until marriage, sacrifice to accept God’s design for one’s body, gender and sexuality, sacrifice to walk through the needs of one’s partner inside and outside the bedroom, all come back to the sacrifice Christ calls us to.

If we place sacrifice first, in all aspects of love, it will become a defence against all forms of lust. Little by little, it will radically change how we live and love people in our day-to-day lives.

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• How can our churches embrace sacrificial love?