Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Why should we serve others?

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.

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