Saved To Serve

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” Phil.2:3 [ASV, emphasis added].

We are saved to serve. Perry Nobel says, “Saved people serve people”. I attribute this statement to him because I have heard him say it the most. If you are saved, you are saved to serve. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” Phil.2:3 [ASV]. I trust that you are fired up to serve and the only question on your mind now is how do I serve? Serving is a three-fold call.

#1. Serve the people you are with everyday. Serve the people you sleep and wake up with. Start from there. If the man discovers that he is the most important person in his home and if he wants to really follow Jesus what he should do is wash the dishes, clean the sofa, do the laundry. That is what Jesus said. Serve the people you are with. Serve your wife. Serve your husband. Sometimes men just want to be pampered, so you are both sitting in the living room and he says ‘please help me get a drink from the fridge’. And your immediate reaction is what is wrong with your legs, you either verbalize the reaction, or your body language says it. My advice, do not ever say that to a man. Serve the people you are with. At work serve the people you are with. Someone around you needs to get something, get it for them. Serve them. That is where you start.

My wife and I serve each other in different ways. Before I understood the five love languages it used to really irritate me. I am walking through the kitchen door and she says please help me get the knife. So I stop and measure the distance between her and the knife and myself and the knife. She is closer to it so why is she telling me to get the knife? But if I do not get the knife there might be no love for me later on. What is the opportunity cost of getting the knife, it is the alternative forgone so I get the knife. I used to grumble because I did not understand it. But I later understood that different people have different love languages. Some people’s love language is acts of service. They do not need your money; they just want to do things for them. It has saved me a whole lot of stress and I am a happier man. Grey hair hardly stays on my head because my wife meticulously picks them out. So I put my head on her laps and she plucks them out and I go to sleep. We serve each other. You have to learn to serve the people you are with. My grandmother says charity begins at home. How else do I serve? Serve the people you see every day.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, help me identify ways to serve the people around me daily and help me serve them without selfish ambition or conceit, in Jesus Name.