Submitted by Josh
Arrington
But I tell you
who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who
curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27-28
We have an
internship program at Church on the Rock where we give students the opportunity
to come to Canada and get hands on experience and practical training in Christian
Ministry and Church Planting. One of our
training sessions with our interns is about the importance of serving others. The
goal of this particular session is to answer two important questions: Why
should we serve others and what is the purpose of serving others?
We have been
running this internship program for 6 years and it has become very evident that
many of us do not fully understand what it means to serve others according to
how Jesus taught His disciples. Many
people can answer the why question fairly easily with an answer like, “Jesus
commands us to serve others,” or “the Bible says to love others and one of the
ways we do that is by serving them.” But
the answer to the second question is where many of us have gotten off
track.
Many believe the
purpose of serving others is to get something in return from the ones we
serve. Answers can sound like this, “we
serve others so that they will come to our church” or, “we serve others so they
will come to our events.” We call this
mindset “serving with strings attached” and the problem with this is that the
focus is more on ourselves than the ones we serve. If we are not careful,
people will be seen more as a project than a person. Before long, people see
right through that.
The purpose of
serving others should be because we love them, even those who don’t like us,
because Jesus loves them and gave His life for them. We only have the ability to love because He
first loved us.
Lord, I pray
that I may show Your love and kindness to family, friends, strangers and
enemies without expecting anything in return. Help me to serve others with no
strings attached.
