How to know it's really Love (12:30)

Easter, 6th Sunday. Anyone can say, "I love you" -- but how do we know it is really love?

• Loving feelings? They leave us after a while.
• They put up with us? No, they may just be making sure the money keeps coming.
• Patience? We can be patient waiting for our spouse to die!

Those are all signs of love, but they aren't sure. The surest sign of love is Sacrifice. If someone loves you, they are willing to sacrifice for you. Previous cultures had to sacrifice daily, but our culture thinks that a happy life comes from not having to sacrifice. As we try to avoid sacrifice, we end up avoiding love. On Mother's Day we see what love really is. Love happens when you get up in the middle of the night with your children, love happens when you sacrifice for your family, or when you struggle every day to keep a relationship working. Sacrifice is the surest sign of love.

Mother's Day is a day to realize that too often, we take others' sacrifices for granted. Perhaps no one is taken for granted as much as God himself. If we looked at Sacrifice, we would realize how loved we really were.

Once there was a young boy who hated how twisted and ugly his mom's hands looked. One day she finally explained why her hands looked that way: because she loved him. Jesus loves us that much -- and He has the wounds to prove it.

(13 May 2012)