Christ’s Sacrifice For Us and Through Us

Dear friends and partners, 

I am overwhelmed with respect and admiration for each and every one of you.  

When you live at the margins of society, you’re face to face with the realities of poverty, violence, and pain. You don’t have a choice. You can’t shut your eyes and hope it goes away. But the further one gets from the margins, ignorance becomes something of a luxury. You don’t have to engage with the reality of life on the margins because it doesn’t immediately affect you. You can choose to ignore it.

Or, you can make a different choice, the choice that each one of you makes every day.  

This choice to stand with people at the margins, to serve and partner with people in need: it’s sacrificial and is often costly. It can even be risky. And because of this, in the eyes of the world, it makes no sense at all. But we’re following the example of Christ. And the world didn’t understand Him either. 

“For God so loved the world …”  Christ didn’t come to be served, but to serve. For Christ, that ultimate act of service was dying on the cross so that we could be saved. He willingly, knowingly took that burden, for us, so that we could be one with God – because He loves us.  

And that’s what we celebrate this Easter: sacrifice and love from God both for and through us.  

As I write this message, I am encouraged by the many ways I see you living as Christ did. No matter where you serve—as LCIs, as staff, as Business Affiliates—you choose to stand in the gap, serving and partnering with people who society often forgets.  

What a gift we have been given. Being part of this body is a source of great hope.   

Yet, even united as we are in seeing so much pain unfold across the world, it’s easy to feel hopeless, like one person trying to move a mountain. But it’s important to remember that though we are called into this battle, we do not carry it alone. It’s bigger than any one of us and all of us together. Yet, Christ is sovereign over it all, for He is risen indeed.   

So, let us unite in Him, in faith, that we may carry on.  May we invite others to join. And may we joyfully embrace the renewing and refining of our hearts that we might be more effective, together.  

During this season of great trials, my admiration for you is ever amplified.  

Be encouraged. Our unity in sacrificial love is our testimony to the world and to the rest of the body today. 

Bob