LS023a - Your Reasonable Service I - For Others' Sake

Hello everyone!

I hope you have been enjoying the increased activity on my blog because I have been enjoying contributing to this blog a lot more. From looking at the finished work of Christ over two posts, to looking at our righteous state in Christ, I have been enjoying the uplift of content quality, as much as you, my dear readers have.

Today, I'm going to look at what service means to me so let's see what happens...

Your Reasonable Service

First off, let me go straight into scripture and in particular Romans 12: -

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

If I say the word "service" to you, do you immediately groan thinking "not that attitude again" or does it mean something different to you?

Let's take a look at a dictionary definition of the word service: -

Service - the action of helping or doing work for someone.

Not bad, not bad if I do say so myself and that's come straight from Google!

Let's have a look at some origins now, shall we?

Service, in this verse, comes from the Greek "latreia", which according to Strong's is defined as an act of worship toward God.

Let me tie those two together then: -

The act of service can be seen as God working through your words or your actions, helping someone in their hour of need.

What do you think about service now?

Service - No Complicated Thing

People often like to groan when they hear that word because it sounds like we are going to have to go out of our way to help someone in need when we don't. Sometimes, it's as simple as holding a door open for someone struggling with baggage. Sometimes it's as simple as a friendly smile to somebody that looks like they would benefit from the action. Sometimes it's as simple as a "thank you" when the waitress serves you your food.

There are no complications to service, despite how much we like to protest how it will put us out a lot and force us to go out of our way. The problem I think that we have is that we are all so insular in our focus, looking to our own needs instead of striking that balance with looking out for the needs of others.

Consider the cross of Jesus, the way I look at it is that the vertical beam of my faith represents the communication and relationship that I have with my Father in Heaven through Jesus. The horizontal beam, on the other hand, represents the love I am to have for my fellow man and woman, universally speaking.

The trap that we can fall into is focusing too much on only one of the two beams: -

The vertical beam by thinking that, because we have a relationship with Christ we are okay and that is all that we need (it is, but not if we are to fulfil our true Christian calling of watching God bring Heaven to earth through us); or

The horizontal beam by becoming so busy looking after everybody else's needs and our own that we forget and lose sight of the fact that God is still in the picture whether we perceive Him or not

Sometimes, we can get caught focusing on one beam of the cross without acknowledging the other renders our sight warped to the point where we think that either: -

• We don't need God; or
• We don't need people

To keep my focus in the right place, I like to remind myself that though I confessed to being a private person in my last post, my world still needs me, even when I'm not at my best.

As long as we remember that the two beams of our faith are what life is all about, honouring God and serving others through His power, we will do alright. It's too easy to fall back onto one beam or other as our default setting, but too long spent on either one of these means we become isolated from others as we are so focused on building up our relationship with God that others don't get a look in, or vice versa and when we are focusing on our relationships, God doesn't get a look in.

Surely that should not be so!

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

1 John 3:16 reminds us that our service of others should be born out of a recognition of God's love for us and not out of compulsion. The problem we have is that, as frail and imperfect humans, we like to tell people that if they really loved God they would serve their fellow man or woman.

That's the wrong way around!

We are to remember God's love for us and let that stir us to love our brothers and sisters in service just like Jesus, in Matthew 19, says toward the rich young ruler.

Final Thought

Next time, I'm going to take another pass at this particular subject because there's much more we can pull out of the definition of service and how it impacts our daily lives when we realise it and, also, when we don't.

Until next time...

Peace!

===TLP===