Serving for the Right Reason

Serving for the Right Reason
Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved

“Service” is a dirty word for many of us. We hear it and immediately react in a negative way. This is most often true for two reasons. The first is because, in our past, some of the people we cared about and/or were dependent on granted us love that was conditional. They would love us fully only if we did something that benefited them in some way. “Conditional love” is contingent on us. It is not contingent on the other person. Many of us have been victims of this love that is really not love at all.

The second reason has nothing to do with being a victim. It is a function of our inherent tendency to make self-centered decisions. We are selfish. The one we most want to serve is the one looking back at us in the mirror. Even as Christians the idea of serving others is often either not very present or it is present but tainted by an underlying motivation to serve others in order to obligate them to serve our own interests.

These two motivations to serve others are always present to some degree in our hearts. Both must be largely overcome if we hope to be freed from a caricature of servant-hood in order to embrace the kind of true servant-hood embodied by Jesus Christ.

The Son of God was, and is, the true Servant. He also helps others for two reasons, but for two very different ones. Jesus serves us because He knows and loves His Father and is known and loved by His Father. Both these loves are perfect, and thus real and unconditional. Jesus is one with the Father and the Father is the only being in the universe whose love is inexhaustible. He does not need us to love Him. Unlike human beings He is self-sufficient in every way and therefore He does not love us to gain something He must have from us like those in our past. He also is not self-centered as we are. He is other-centered by divine nature.

Jesus has been described as “a Man for others”. This is because, being one with the Father, He perfectly reflects His Father’s nature. Our Lord loves us because he genuinely has our best interests in heart. He is overflowing with infinite love and desires to serve us because a special part of that affection is reserved for the only creation He has made in His own image. There is no ulterior, self-centered motive. God is not capable of deceit and He is not needy of anything we could possibly give Him. That eliminates “ulterior” and “self-centered”. He loves and serves us because He wants to.

So how do we come to serve like God does? We can only do so by choosing to identify ourselves with the One who embodies Him in human form, His Son. As we choose to draw near to Jesus and sit, like Mary, at His feet. We will begin to reflect His nature. Then, when we look in the mirror, we will begin to see not our old self but the image of Christ. Part of this transformation will include the dawning of a new desire to serve others, a desire that is based on a real love for people and a humble and sincere desire to seek their good, the same motivation that moves the One we are becoming like.

Then the word “service” will take on a new and blessed meaning, one which we will truly desire to embrace and live out.