What Do You Want?

"Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity." (1 John 2:15-17, The Message translation

The baying for wealth, power, recognition, and status is endemic to human nature. We all want our own ways. But all the things that we want will one day disappear, just like we will. 

There's nothing wrong with wanting a decent quality of life. 

And there's most emphatically nothing wrong with wanting to give better lives to neighbors who are subject to injustice, grief, or having no acquaintance with the God revealed in Jesus. 

These expressions of love for our neighbors are exactly what God desires us to pursue, as summarized in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission: Love God. Love neighbor. Make disciples, followers of Jesus.

John says that "whoever does what God wants is set for eternity." And what is it that God wants us to do? Jesus puts it succinctly in John 6:29: ""The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." 

When we daily set aside our self-centered or self-aggrandizing agendas and our desires, trusting Christ, we're doing the will of God, the work of God. Not only do we have life from the One we trust, but as the love of God and love of neighbor that comes from Christ fills us, the lives of others are changed for the better too.

40-Days to Servanthood: Day 14

You can cultivate servanthood as a way of life.

If you’ve gotten this far in these readings, you’ve become aware of a paradox. A paradox, according to one dictionary, is a “seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true: [for example:] the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking.”

The servanthood paradox is this:

• Servanthood is an involuntary response to Jesus Christ.
• Servanthood is also the chosen lifestyle of those who want to follow Christ.

In spite of the seeming contradiction, most Christians would affirm both of the preceding statements. We take no credit for the good we do; that’s Christ living in us. But without daily decisions to give our lives to Christ--to say, “Yes” to Him, He wouldn’t live in us.

So, how do we say, “Yes” to Christ’s call to servanthood? Christian thinker Richard Foster says we do this when, not for the sake of looking good, but for the love of Christ, we choose each day to serve others in Christ’s Name and do so in hidden ways. Foster uses the New Testament term for our sinful human impulses, the flesh, to describe the war that all who surrender to Christ wage in order to crucify the old sinful self and to rise as a true servants of God:

“The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance.”

If you’re intent on taking the hard and God-blessed path of servanthood, you might want to pray this prayer each day, “Jesus, help me serve not for the compliments of others, but to glorify You and to help others.” Then, do more than pray about it; work at it! This is how you can cultivate servanthood as a way of life!

Bible Passage to Ponder: “Practically everything that goes on in the world--wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important--has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out" (1 John 2:15-17, The Message).