Serving

We were rescued for a purpose: We are saved to serve. Rick Warren puts it this way: ‘God created, saved, called and commanded you to live a life of service. We are only fully alive when we’re helping others. Jesus said, “If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live” (Mark 8:35 TLB). If we are not serving we are just existing, because life is meant for ministry. God wants you to learn to love and serve others unselfishly. The old comparison between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea is a good one. Galilee is a lake full of life because it takes in water but also gives it out. In contrast, nothing lives in the Dead Sea because, with no outflow, the lake has stagnated. What many believers need today is to be involved in serving experiences where they can exercise their spiritual muscles… Serving is the opposite of our natural inclination. Most of the time we’re more interested in “serve us” than service. We say, “I’m looking for a church that meets my needs and blesses me,” not “I’m looking for a place to serve and be a blessing.” We expect others to serve us, not vice versa. But as we mature in Christ, the focus of our lives should increasingly shift to living a life of service. The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, “Who’s going to meet my needs?” and starts asking, “Whose needs can I meet?”

Rick Warren (Source: taken from a daily reading plan from YouVersion Bible app.)

Steve Sjogren wrote a book called Conspiracy of Kindness. He started a church in Cincinnati, Ohio, that has grown rapidly to an average attendance of 7,500 in just fifteen years. Their motto is, ‘Small things done with great love are changing the world’. They carry out random acts of kindness like paying for a stranger’s coffee, or writing a ‘thank you’ note to a shop assistant. They have discovered the power and impact of ‘showing God’s love in practical ways’. People from outside were attracted because of what they saw happening on the inside. They were attracted by the sheer undiluted power of God released through ‘acts of kindness’.

Source: Bible in One Year – Alpha, Day 157, Kindness, published 06/06/14

Imagine a G20 summit of world leaders. The limos arrive. The politicians enter the banqueting hall. But the US President is nowhere to be seen. Then the British Prime Minster goes off to the toilet – and there’s the President… cleaning them! That’s a wholly inadequate picture of what the Son of God did in His earthly life. Jesus did not come to get, but to give; He came to serve and to save.

Explore Bible notes, 3/10/2012

Stand out from the crowd: Many years ago in a small hotel in Philadelphia, USA, an elderly couple, on a business trip from England, approached the night clerk seeking a room. “We have tried several other hotels,” said the man, “but it seems there is a convention in town and they are all full. Do you by any chance have a room you could let us have?”

The hotel clerk shook his head sadly and said, “I’m sorry, all our rooms are taken as well.” Then, seeing the couple’s dejected look, the clerk thought hard and came up with a suggestion: “Look, I will be working on the desk all night and so I don’t need my room. Why don’t you take that?” The couple were taken aback by his kindness and generosity, and after a little more persuasion they accepted his offer.

The next morning when they were checking out, the elderly man said to the clerk, “Young man, you would make a great hotel manager. How would you like me to build a fine hotel for you in New York City and then you could come and manage it for me?” The clerk smiled politely and jokingly said, “Sir, I would like nothing better in the whole world.”

They parted friends and the clerk thought nothing more about it until a couple of years later when he received a letter from the man, along with an invitation; an offer of a round-trip visit to New York to come and visit – guess what? – his new hotel. It turned out that the elderly gentleman was William Waldorf Astor, or Viscount Astor (the British peer). His hotel was the (now-famous) Waldorf-Astoria on the corner of Fifth Avenue in New York City. The clerk’s name, the man who went the extra mile and dared to be different, was George C. Boldt. He became the Waldorf-Astoria’s first manager and went on to become one of the greatest hotel managers in the world.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential

The story is told about a grubby little urchin in the slum, being teased by another boy: “Hah! You say God loves you. Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t he look after you? Why doesn’t God tell someone to bring you shoes and a warm coat and better food?” The little urchin thought for a moment. Then with tears starting in his eyes, he replied, “I guess he does tell somebody, but somebody forgets…”

Source: Simon Guillbaud, For What It’s Worth, 2006, Oxford: Monarch Books, p.159] [we can’t do everything but friends, we must not do nothing.

During World War II, John Fawkes piloted a B-17. On one mission he sustained flak from Nazi anti-aircraft guns. Even though his fuel tanks were hit the plane did not explode, and Fawkes was able to land the plane safely. On the morning following the raid Fawkes asked his crew chief for the German shell, to keep it as a souvenir of his good fortune. The chief explained that not just one, but eleven shells had been found in the fuel tank, none of which exploded. Technicians opened the shells and found them void of explosive charge. They were clean and harmless, and with one exception empty. The exception contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it a message had been scrawled in the Czech language: ‘This is all we can do for now’. – A courageous assembly line worker was disarming bombs and had scribbled that note. He couldn’t end the war, but he could save one plane. He couldn’t do everything but he could do something and he did it.

Max Lucado

From Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado (this version in The UCB Word For Today 19/4/2007)