One is an event, which may require no personal cost, merely come sit, spectate, get up, go home, end of story! The other is pre-occupied with people, the needs of people, seeing, denying yourself and preferring them, for Jesus sake. “… ourselves your servants for Jesus sake.”- {2 Cor 4:5}.
Don’t substitute “services” as an end,to the exclusion of being equipped to go forth more conscious of serving people, for Jesus sake!
“Services,” don’t make servants!
Submission and preoccupation with the Savior causes us to serve, motivated by His love for Him and others a result! We meet according to Hebrews 10:24-25 ,among other things to “stimulate one another to love, good deeds, encouragement…” We meet to spur one another on to these three services, love, good deeds, encouragement, which are “others” concerned…Go with a purpose to do as Hebrews 10:23-25 states. Not to spectate but to participate, serving others.
Don’t wait to be served, but seek to serve! Jesus said He did not come to be served but to serve. His outlook was others !
Go to hear His Word, apply His Word, and serve others for Jesus sake. It’s easy to pat ourselves on the back, and check off our “goody” list, we have been to a service and yet pass by someone on the side of the road who has a flat tire, as we are flying to get to a restaurant before the crowd gets there “before us!” Hmm, that’s when the “service” has had no effect on us. We have deceived ourselves into thinking showing up for a service is the be all and end all.
Think on the story of the good Samaritan, two men walked on the other side of the street when they saw one in need, they had come from the “place” of worship….the good Samaritan is commended as he was taken up with the welfare of a person who was beaten up and left for dead. He stopped to serve, and he is commended and placed before us as what it means to love your neighbor. Love stops. Love stoops. Love serves sacrificially thinking only of the well-being of the other person. He not only took him to a place to recuperate but as he had to continue on his own journey told the proprietor if the wounded man needed anything to give it to him and he would take care of it upon His return. This is love in action and the LORD Jesus commends it and gives us an example not to admire but to follow! This is true service.
Don’t think going to a service nullifies or satisfies what it means to serve others for Jesus sake. Love is not a program. Love is a life laid down in service preferring denying self in order to prefer others for Jesus sake.( Read Phil 2:3-5; 2 Cor 4:5). We too often prefer others would deny themselves to serve us! That is selfishness not selflessness!
Substituting “services” for service is selfishness and reveals a selfish life, focused on self, it’s the opposite of the cross and the life He calls us to, namely Loving God and Loving others.