Loving or Serving?

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let Me.” (Matthew 23:37 NLT)

In the later verses of Luke 10 we find Jesus visiting in the home of Mary and Martha. Martha is busying herself preparing a big meal for Jesus and His disciples, while Mary is enthralled by the gift of sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His words. Often, we wrongly assume that Martha was wrong, and Mary was right in that scenario, but loving Jesus isn’t an either-or situation.

Loving Jesus means serving Him but serving and loving go hand in hand. Ron Hutchcraft says in reference to this passage: “Jesus, of course, wasn’t condoning laziness. He was applauding the priority of loving Him over serving Him…of spending time with Him over doing things for Him. Yes, our love will result in serving and doing things for Him, but it has to be anchored in spending time with Him.”

Our serving has to be bathed in our waiting and listening. That’s why daily reading and pondering God’s Word is so critical. We too often want to race to the service line for Jesus, but in so doing we leave Him sitting, waiting for us to prepare our heart, mind, and soul for that service.

Servants are what we are, but servants listen to their Master’s instructions. David in Psalm 119:72 said: “Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver.” Serving without listening voids the value of our service. We must learn to read God’s Word as if we were listening to those words coming from the mouth of our Savior.

In the verses from Matthew at the top of the page Jesus is grieving over the city that won’t listen to Him, but the tragedy is that His tears are often shed because those of us who claim His holy name leave Him waiting, ignoring His invitations, and crippling our ability to serve well in the process.

Kevin DeYoung wrote: “We are not saved just by sitting in pews. We are not saints just by showing up on Sunday morning.” We want to believe that because we “sacrifice” our time to attend worship, that’s the sum of our “Christian” commitment. Christ revealed on a Cross His commitment to us. Do you think squeezing into a comfortable chair for an hour on Sunday morning is going to satisfy our commitment to Him?

F. B. Meyer wrote: “Lord, I cannot hope to sit on your right or your left in your kingdom, but permit me to sit at your feet and hear your Word.” That’s a prayer you and I should pray every morning and throughout our day. As with God the Father we want to get too chummy with Jesus, forgetting He’s our Lord, not our sidekick.

Yes, of course He laughs and cries with us, but that doesn’t give us the right to take His sacrifice on our behalf lightly or casually. We – YOU and I – deserved to be on that Cross, not the sinless Son of God. Thinking of how much we owe Him and all that we leave undone because of our busyness should bring us to our knees in shame and disgust with ourselves.

Worship cannot and must not be a Sunday morning “sacrifice” we make to appease God, rather a moment-by-moment practice regardless of whatever else is going on in our lives. If we leave Jesus at the door of our work, home, or times of recreation, we haven’t yet learned that He’s Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all!

Loving or serving? They’re one and the same or should be!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊