🔥 Love That Costs Something

Kneading binds us to what we create—just as shared suffering binds us to what God is shaping.

📚 Devotional Credit: Open Windows by T. Austin-Sparks – “The Eternal Reward of Labour and Suffering”
📸 Photo Credit: Unsplash

There are things in the Christian life that only become truly ours through suffering. T. Austin-Sparks shares that those who pass quick judgment on a ministry or fellow believer often do so because they have not borne the cost of laboring in love for that soul or that work. Criticism flows easily when we stand outside of something. But when we’ve been joined to it through tears, prayer, and suffering, our perspective changes entirely.

Suffering has a way of stripping away selfishness. It doesn’t merely hurt—it binds hearts. When we weep with someone, when we labor with them through sorrow or misunderstanding or spiritual battle, we grow fiercely loyal to the work of God in their life. The ministry we once viewed as an idea or theory becomes something we now own in our hearts. It’s not doctrine alone anymore—it’s been pressed into us by the weight of love and loss.

When God joins us to something—whether it be a person, a calling, or a truth—He often brings us through travail. And through that shared pain, we become not spectators with critiques, but participants with protective love. In that love, we stop counting flaws and start covering them, not out of blindness, but out of the very character of Christ. After all, we’ve suffered together—and in that suffering, we’ve seen something more precious than perfection: grace.

📓 Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture

I have not called you to stand at a distance. I’ve called you to enter in. The truths I reveal are not trophies to be admired but treasures to be lived, and the path to possessing them runs through suffering. I draw you into the heart of My work by allowing you to feel its cost—not to harm you, but to anchor your love where your words once floated freely.

Critics speak from safety; you will speak from scars. And those scars will not harden you—they will soften you. They will melt away the self that seeks convenience and replace it with My compassion. The more deeply I unite you with My work, the more tender you will become toward My people. You will no longer ask whether they deserve your love. You will love because I have joined your heart to Mine.

Your tears will water the ground where My kingdom grows. Your pain will purify your motives. And as I knit your life into others through the thread of suffering, you will cease to look for faults and instead long to protect what is Mine. Let My love in you cover what criticism would expose. You have not been called to stand apart—I have brought you into the fellowship of My sufferings, where love becomes real and truth becomes yours.

Scripture References: 2 Corinthians 2:4; Philippians 1:29; Romans 5:3–5; 2 Timothy 2:10–12; 1 Peter 4:13; Colossians 1:24; Galatians 6:2; Proverbs 10:12; 1 Peter 4:8; Romans 12:15; Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:6–11

🧈 Real-Life Analogy

It’s like kneading dough with your bare hands. You can read recipes all day, but once you’ve sunk your fingers into the mixture—feeling its resistance, its mess, and finally its transformation—you begin to understand what’s involved. Those who haven’t touched it can critique its appearance. But those who’ve labored in it know its worth, not from sight, but from experience.

Today, when someone else’s weakness stirs your flesh to critique, pause instead. If God has joined your life to theirs, trust Him to express His love through you. In a real moment—when tensions rise at home, or when a coworker falters—yield to God with a simple breath and say in your heart, Lord, You are in me. Love through me now, for I have no desire to stand apart from Your mercy. He will take over.

🙏 Prayer of Confidence

Father, I thank You that You have not left me on the sidelines. You’ve drawn me into the very heart of Your work—through love, through pain, through fellowship. I rejoice that nothing is wasted. Suffering in You becomes a sacred bond. Today, I trust You to express Your tenderness in me, not only toward those who suffer, but even toward those I’m tempted to criticize. You have joined me to what is Yours, and I rest in the truth that Your love in me covers more than I could ever correct.