The Costly Way of Love: Surrender, Submission, and Sacrifice

When the Lord first began the deep, transformative work of healing my heart by the Sword and the Spirit, the very first thing He did was awaken my heart to the Fruit of the Spirit.

If I am being completely transparent, out of the nine fruits listed in Galatians, there were three that I realized I had barely ever experienced: love, joy, and peace. Up until the age of 33, my life had been defined by a succession of childhood and young adulthood traumas. Because of those broken places, my heart didn’t truly know God’s love, let alone how to extend that kind of love to others. My heart knew absolutely nothing of joy as I battled a plethora of mental health struggles. And peace? The kind of peace that genuinely surpasses all human understanding was entirely foreign to me.

But God, in His infinite mercy, did a great and mighty work on my heart.

By now, as many of you in the ministry know, healing doesn't mean the testing stops. Our faith is tested every single day. Recently, I found myself sitting in deep contemplation about the true depth of love - the divine, agape type of love God requires of us [those who choose to follow His way]. I began asking myself: What does this love feel like? What does it sound like, taste like, look like, and even smell like?

God's way of love is like that of a mother - sacrificial. It is knowing that He asks much of us as he did Abraham, and it is our choice to honor His request in trust and obedience, believing He holds the final outcome.

Why the Hardest Battles?

During this time of reflection, my heart was wrestling with a heavy question—one I’m sure many of you have whispered in your quietest moments:

Why does God pick the toughest battles for those of us who have already been through the toughest crises in life? Why does He require and ask so much of us? Why does He test our faith so deeply, breaking us down just to reshape and mold us into His image?

The answer brought me directly to the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24-26:

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.’”

This is the weight and the way of love. In my own journey of heart transformation—as I have grown deeper and more securely rooted in Christ—I have learned that God’s way of love requires three things: surrender to God’s Word, submission to God’s will, and becoming a living sacrifice. It means becoming a hollow vessel solely so His love can flow through you.

Two Ways to Live: Self-Preservation vs. The Spirit-Led Soul

Following God’s way of love is costly. You cannot love God’s way and still hold on to yourself.

When we carry trauma, our natural default is self-preservation. But we have to look closely at what these two paths actually do to our inner worlds:

The Path of Self-Preservation	The Spirit-Led, Spirit-Minded Life
The Blueprint: Operating out of fear, hyper-vigilance, and control to ensure we never get hurt again.	The Blueprint: Operating out of an anchor of absolute trust in God’s sovereignty and goodness.
What it Looks Like: Building high emotional walls, masking, keeping people at a distance, overthinking, and hoarding our time, money, and emotional energy.	What it Looks Like: Moving with radical vulnerability, extending grace quickly, being quick to listen, and living with open hands.
What it Does to the Soul: It suffocates us. Self-preservation traps us in a spiritual prison of isolation, keeping our hearts brittle, anxious, and completely closed off from receiving or giving true agape love.	What it Does to the Soul: It liberates us. It breathes a deep, unshakable peace into our core, expanding our capacity for joy and allowing us to live light, unburdened by the weight of defending ourselves.

When you are Spirit-focused, your mind is no longer consumed by “How do I protect myself?” Instead, it is consumed by “How do I honor Him?” You realize that you don’t have to defend your heart anymore because the Creator of the universe is your shield.

Truth: Love Will Cost You Something

God's way of love must cost us something. For some of us, it will cost us time or money. For others, it will cost us the comforts, relationships, careers, pleasures, or deeply ingrained desires in our earthly life. True love for God, Others and Self [self which is now in Christ and not of the world] forces us to abandon self-preservation. It asks us to surrender our tight grip on our own plans, trusting that when we submit them to Him, He will upgrade them into a life that may not exist in our wildest dreams, but will echo into eternity. It requires sacrificing our worldly comforts and temporary wants for desires that actually please the Father. Unfortunately, many Christians live in the lies of self-preservation also masked as "protecting my peace"; a secular thinking not biblically grounded in Christ.

So, what does it mean for us to practically carry the sound of love? How do we become the "way of love" to the people God places in our paths?

Our Daily Practices and Mandate

We aren't just called to feel love; we are mandated to live it out. Galatians 6:1-9 reminds us to bear one another’s burdens, to restore each other gently, and to not grow weary in doing good.

To help us move from self-preservation into a truly Spirit-minded flow, here are a few personal practices and daily habits I engage in to ensure I am bearing the sound of love, even when it costs me:

• The Pause of Restoration (Galatians 6:1): When someone around me stumbles or acts out of their own brokenness, my instinct used to be self-preservation or judgment. Now, I practice pausing and asking the Holy Spirit: "How can I help restore this person in a spirit of gentleness?" It costs me my pride, but it sounds like love.

• Practical Burden-Bearing (Galatians 6:2): I have intentionally carved out margin in my weekly schedule and finances. If we are too busy or too financially strained by our own lifestyle desires, we cannot carry anyone else's load. Love looks like showing up with a meal, an open ear, or financial support when a sister is in crisis.

• Surrendering the Calendar: Every morning, I submit my daily planner to the Lord. I explicitly tell Him, "Your will over my schedule." When interruptions happen—a friend in need, a divine appointment—I view it as an opportunity to be a living sacrifice rather than an annoyance.

• The Discipline of Sowing to the Spirit (Galatians 6:8): When mental health struggles or old trauma responses try to whisper old patterns of self-preservation to my heart, I actively combat them by sowing to the Spirit—spending time absorbing God's Word, praying in the spirit, and refusing to feed the fleshly urge to isolate or self-protect.

Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself: What is Biblical Self-Love?

As we talk about shedding self-preservation and taking up our cross, it naturally brings us to a foundational truth Jesus spoke: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

For a long time, my traumatized heart misunderstood this. The world tells us that self-love is about vanity, indulgence, putting yourself above all else, or creating a fortress of isolation under the guise of "boundaries." But that is worldly self-preservation, not biblical self-love.

So, what is healthy, biblical love of self?

Biblical self-love is agreeing with God about who you are. It means recognizing that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, deeply cherished, and bought with a high price. It is the realization that your soul is a temple of the Holy Spirit, worthy of being nurtured, tended to, and kept healthy.

When you have a healthy, biblical love of self, you steward your mental, emotional, and spiritual health out of reverence for the Lord, not self. You don't embrace self-preservation, you don't abuse yourself with negative self-talk, you don't allow yourself to walk in shame that Jesus already carried on the cross, and you actively seek the healing Jesus paid for.

And here is the beautiful secret: You cannot truly give to others what you have not received from God. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, He implies a baseline - to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. If your version of "self-love" is rooted in trauma, insecurity, and self-reproach, that is exactly how you will treat others—with suspicion, exhaustion, and conditions. But when your version of self-love is rooted in Christ, honoring and doing what pleases Him, when that version of self-love is anchored and your identity is in God’s immense love for you, accepting His healing and grace, your well becomes full. Only then can you genuinely love your neighbor...even on your "worst" days. You love them with the same grace, dignity, and restorative heart that you have received from the Lord.

Dear Sister, do not grow weary. The breaking and the molding are producing something beautiful. Let us lay down the heavy, exhausting secular practice of self-preservation, embrace our identity as His beloved daughters, and let His love flow through us today. Who is God nudging your heart about loving that you are resisting because you believe "they are hard to love"? Change your spiritual narrative about your heart today and you will find the grace to love them.

Happy July!

Until next time, be good, be godly and choose to Live FREE!

Kate