If your sense of self worth is based on anything other than God’s approval, you won’t serve with the right motives. True servants accept jobs that insecure people consider “beneath them”. Remember Jesus washing the feet of His disciples? Washing dirty feet of guests was one of the most demeaning jobs in that day.
Insecure people always worry about how they appear. They hide their weaknesses beneath layers of protective pride. The more insecure you are the more you need people to serve you, and the more you work for their acceptance. Psychologist Henry Nouwen says, “In order to be of service to others we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value by the yardstick of others…thus we become free to be compassionate.”
True servants don’t need to cover their walls with plaques or trophies or lofty titles. If anybody had a chance to “name-drop” it was James the half-brother of Jesus. Consider those credentials: growing up with Jesus as your brother! Yet he simply referred to himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (James 1:1).
Let’s not worry about what others think of us. Let’s just, “Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2).
Tags: First Impressions, insecure, service
Every week churches and organizations have to improvise at the last minute because volunteers didn’t prepare, show up, or even call to say they weren’t coming. Its not fair to the people they are ministering to, and its not fair to those who must step in at the last minute unprepared. I remember a young couple who stopped attending our church years ago because they seemed to get recruited for some fill-in ministry every weekend.
Its God’s design that in the church everyone finds an area of ministry and stays faithful. That makes a strong church. But, it seems the larger the church, the more people sit back and expect someone else to do everything for them.
Jesus taught the parable of the talents to emphasize this truth. He said, referring to the servant who failed to use his one talent: “Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents” (Matthew 25:28 NIV). Fail to use what you’ve been given and you’ll lose it. Use what you’ve got and God will increase it. Down here on earth we’re practicing. Like athletes, we’re training for our big day. Paul said, “They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes…You’re after one that’s gold eternally” (1 Corinthians 9:25). So, practice well.
Tags: faithfulness, preparation, service
President Harry Truman once said, “When you get to be President, there are the honors, the 21-gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.”
There’s an old folk tale of the man who took his ox for a day in the fields. All day long a flea sat on the ox’s nose. At day’s end, as the farmer led the ox through town on the way home, the flea grandly proclaimed to the townspeople: “We’ve been plowing!”
The servant of Christ recognizes that it is God who produces the result. We are given the privilege of taking a ride with the Master.
Tags: pride, service, Truman
In his book, Its Not My Department, motivational speaker Peter Glen illustrates the value of learning to serve. He tells the story of a man named John Barrier, who went in to cash a $25 check at the U. S. Bank of Washington in Spokane. In his Ace Concrete Company baseball cap and dungarees, Barrier looked like an ordinary customer.
As he left the bank, he tried to drive his pickup truck out of the parking lot. The young man at the parking booth, however, told Barrier to cough up 60 cents, or he’d have to go back into the bank and get his parking ticket validated – proving he had done business at the bank.
Annoyed, Barrier backed up, parked his truck and went back into the bank to have the teller stamp his ticket. He couldn’t find the original teller, and the one he did find refused to validate it. She thought he was a dead beat.
This time, Barrier was really ticked off. “Give me the $ 1 million I keep here!” he snorted. “I’m taking it next door.”
Alarmed, the teller called a supervisor, who whispered to her that her customer was a multimillionaire real-estate developer. The bank apologized and quickly stamped his parking ticket – but it was too late. Barrier withdrew his money and took it to the new bank down the street. Because of its unserving nature, the bank was out $1,000,000.60.
What does that story say to you?
Tags: money, service
A woman named Nancy put this ad in her local newspaper: “If you are lonely or have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair and seldom get out. We can share our problems with each other. Just call. I’d love to talk.” The response to that ad has been tremendous – 30 calls or more every week.
What motivated this woman to reach out from her wheelchair to help others in need? Nancy explained that before her paralysis she had been perfectly healthy but in deep despair. She tried to commit suicide by jumping from her apartment window, but instead she became paralyzed from the waist down.
In the hospital, utterly frustrated, she sensed Jesus saying to her, “Nancy, you’ve had a healthy body but a crippled soul. From now on you will have a crippled body but a healthy soul.” As a result of that experience, she surrendered her life to Christ. When she was finally allowed to go home, she prayed for a way to share God’s grace with others, and the idea of the newspaper ad occurred to her.
Is there a way God could be using bad stuff in your life to lead you down the path He has set for you? Ask Him.
Tags: call, crippled, newspaper, service
The Pryor Report reports: Why Companies Lose Customers:
Companies rise and fall in their customers’ favor for a variety of reasons. The American Society for Quality Control reports the following study showing the relative importance of several reasons companies lose customers:
They Died………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1%
They moved away…………………………………………………………………………………………………..3%
They were influenced by friends………………………………………………………………………………..5%
They were lured away by the competition…………………………………………………………………..9%
They were dissatisfied with the product…………………………………………………………………….14%
They were turned away by an attitude of indifference on the part of a company employee…68%
Clearly, treating customers better is the best way to retain them.
The emphasis on good service has increased so much of late that the ASQC warns: “Unless a customer is completely satisfied – to the point of being positively delighted and willing to brag about the product or service received – there exists great potential for market damage and future trouble for the company.”
What does this article teach us about the church?
Tags: service
Yesterday morning I was in the bathroom trying to get myself beautified (a major undertaking first thing in the morning), when Anita yelled at me like there was an emergency. She was standing on the front porch watering her plants. I ran to the door to see what the commotion was. Down at the end of the lane was the weekly garbage truck just sitting there. We had forgotten this was trash pick up day!
I quickly threw on a shirt and ran out to the garage, grabbed the garbage can and began wheeling it down the lane. The garbage man got out of his truck and walked up the lane to meet me. We met half way and he wheeled the can on down to his truck. That was something I did not expect! I’m sure he had a route to run and could not go home to his family until he was finished, yet he took the time to wait and actually helped me get it done.
What if each of us Christians acted that way to others in our daily routine, sacrificing our own time and comfort to help another? I think it might make a big difference in how non-Christians see Christians. Let’s give them something to talk about this week. Be a servant.
Tags: garbage, service