Sunday, April 26, 2015

In Loving Service

God recently revealed something to me and I want to share it with y'all.  Maybe it's something you already know, but maybe it will hit you the way it hit me.  I'll never look at serving the same way.

I have a servant's heart- I love to serve people in any capacity; especially my husband because I have such a big love for him.  A servant's heart does not come naturally to everyone.  It isn't necessarily that those of us who aren't naturally servant-hearted are just inherently selfish (although humans as a species are all inherently selfish to varying degrees).  We were all created with different gifts and talents and a servant's heart is just one of those things.  No better, no worse, just different.  And yet, it's a gift we all need to have.  We're supposed to love one another as Jesus loves us, and he is a servant king.  Matthew 25:40 says that whatever we do for the least, we also do for Jesus.  We are his hands and feet in this world and so we all need to have a servant's heart occasionally.

It comes so naturally to me to serve my husband.  I spoil him, but I love to.  I put his shoes on in the morning and take them off at night.  Not because he can't and not even because he asked me to (he didn't).  In fact, it took him quite a while to get used to the fact that I wanted to do that for him.  It's just a small act of loving service that I can perform for him to show him how much I love him.  I'm sure we all do something like that for our spouses because we want to show our love for them.  Well, guess what?  Everything we do for God is done in the same way, with the same purpose; to show God how much we love him!  I have generally looked at serving God as something of a requirement; a duty.  It is those things, but I never have looked at serving God as a way to show him how very much I love him!  I looked at it as obedience, as a duty, as a privilege and an honor, but never as a way to show God that I love him.  Maybe y'all are thinking, "well, duh, Catherine.  Took you long enough."  I totally agree.  It seems so obvious now, but wow, it sure has given me a new outlook.  Now, when I do things like driving for Feed the Flock (a program at our church which provides a hot meal for families in need, twice a week) or singing on praise team at church, or even just helping out a friend in need, I think about how we are supposed to do everything as though we were working for the Lord rather than people (Colossians 3:23) and I realize that the act of being obedient and doing whatever I am doing is showing God that I care about what he wants from me and that I love him enough to be obedient to his word.

Before this revelation, it isn't that I wasn't trying to show my love for Jesus.  I just thought that the only way I was doing it was through worship.  I suppose I was a little caught up in the thought that my obedience was just trying to be good enough for Jesus.  Worthy, somehow, of his immense sacrifice.  My friends, that just ain't ever gon' happen.  I am a sinner and I don't know how to be anything else.  Thank you Jesus that it doesn't matter that I can't live a sin-free life
.  My obedience does not make him love me more or less.  My worship is not the only way I have to show him how grateful I am and how much I love him.  And HE is the one who showed that to me!  What an incredible God we love.  Amen.

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