2 Cents

2 Corinthians 8:1-4

And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.

Do you ever read passages like this and wonder, “Why am I not like the Macedonian Christians?” Do you find that you often have to discipline yourself to serve and give rather than having it naturally overflow out of the joy of your heart? Hopefully this post will help you bridge the gap between your service now and that exhibited in the New Testament.

I think most everyone can agree that the New Testament calls us to serve. The commands are numerous and clear – 1 Peter 4:10, Mark 10:43-45, 1 John 3:16, John 13:15-17, Luke 17:10. But even deeper than this, we are urged to do so with joy, to love serving.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:3

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8

So how do we go from serving as a duty and an obligation (when many times we don’t naturally want to) to serving as an overflow of joy and desiring deeply to meet the needs of others?

First, we must fall in love with God. If we do this we will love others as he loves them. And we know how much he loves them by the cross (Rom. 5:8, John 3:16, 1 John 3:16). How do we fall in love with God? By spending time with him. God is the most lovely and good thing in the universe. When we spend time with him we cannot help but be drawn to him because of this. It’s inevitable. Regular, consistent, deep, undistracted, time in the word and in prayer is the best way to accomplish this. Also spending quality time with those that you can clearly tell are already in love with God is extremely helpful.

Second, we must actually make ourselves serve when we don’t want to. At first this may sound counter-productive – to know that God doesn’t want us to serve under compulsion or with a dutiful obligation but then to do so anyway. The point is that God wants you to get to a point where service is natural and not forced. But you cannot get there overnight. And one of the best ways to get there is to simply start serving. By meeting the needs of others you will experience a natural high and God-glorifying joy that you will want to duplicate again and again. But sometimes you can’t experience that high until you’ve actually forced yourself to get out and serve. Once you do you start a never-ending cycle of service producing joy motivating you to more service producing more joy.

Finally we must realize that God does not judge service based upon its effectiveness but on the heart behind it. Even the most menial or mundane task can honor the Lord in an extraordinary way. Consider the woman who gave two fractions of a penny in Mark 12:41-44. Consider that Jesus said that even something as small as a cold cup of water given in his name would be rewarded in Matthew 10:42. Even the most glorified example of service (apart from the cross) in Scripture was a menial task normally done by a house slave but in this instance done by the God of the Universe (John 13). When we realize this we will no longer talk ourselves out of service because we feel it’s not that important in the big picture.

The person handing out bulletins at church or cleaning the toilets can have more heavenly reward than the preacher depending on their heart.