A Lifestyle of Giving
Galatians 5:13
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
To serve means to work for; to labor on behalf of; to exert one’s self continuously for the benefit of another. It is to wait upon, to attend to and supply the wants of another. When you think about it, this is what the waiter does when you go to a restaurant. Service is a gift we are called to give to one another. God in His mercies has given each one of us a gift that we are to use to serve one another.
Many today are not willing to serve unless a monetary benefit is attached to their service. The days of serving someone and not expecting something in return are long gone and when you ask someone to do something for you without any money in return then you are taking advantage of their “gift”. Truth is there are those who go off in that extreme but it does not negate the fact that pure service no strings attached is hard to come by today.
I read a story of a great preacher who received an invitation from a young preacher to speak in his church. After the service the two preachers got together for a meal and the young preacher said, “I remember when you preached at my father’s church many years ago. My mother had been up and about the whole day and she was so tired. After we had dinner, you walked over to the kitchen and you helped my mom with the dishes. I’ll never forget that. I forgot your sermon, but I haven’t forgotten you doing dishes at my mother’s home.”
Sometimes we are quick to serve people in authority because of selfish motives. At the back of our minds, our motive is wrong because we are doing it in the hopes that we will get some sort of favor from them. To me the true test of service is to serve people who do not have the capacity to do anything for you in return.
Just as with the giving of help that we looked at yesterday, daily we are presented with the opportunity to serve others but because we are too self-centered and sometimes to proud then we miss out on those golden opportunities to leave a mark in someone’s life.
Around you today there is someone in need who needs your service and when you are not willing to offer and give it you miss out on an opportunity not only to bless someone and be a good representative of God’s kingdom, you also miss out on an opportunity for a blessing.
