Serve

You began your new life in Jesus filled with love! Your heart burned with passion over what the Lord had done only later to find that your inability to grow spiritually killed the joy you experienced. The failure to surrender stems from self. You can't experience the truth of what Jesus imparted at Calvary without surrender. Your mind will not be renewed without submission. Your life belongs to Him. What He calls you to do and share with others doesn’t belong to you. Your life is His. Serve others as He served you. Getting your mind off your own needs and helping others changes your whole perspective.

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion” (Philippians 2:5-8, MSG). God became human for our sake. Living a selfless life, he died a selfless death. Jesus regarded himself as no more significant than anyone else and gave His life for you and me. He had a servant's heart. His grace calls you to have a servant’s heart. 

There is no “you.” There is only His love. “If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ,” Paul wrote, “if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand” (Philippians 2:1-4, MSG). Love with His love. Forgive with His forgiveness. Don’t demand your own way. Become less, Paul writes, so that He can be more.

Serving others is grace in action. Each day is a chance to help someone else. Each opportunity to live His selfless love is ministry. Your life—your work—what you share or do belongs to Him. It is only by His mercy and grace that you have found new life. Don’t ever forget that His power in your life is His gift that cost Him His life. And His power is only at its greatest when self is wholly surrendered to Him. The least is greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.

©2019 Lynn Lacher

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