Serving Christ

What does it mean to “serve Christ”?  The word “serve” can mean performing duties or services; it can also mean attending someone as in serving a meal.  The word is used many times and in many forms in the Bible.  If you have spent any time in the local church, you have been asked to serve God in some fashion.  You may serve God by teaching a class, singing in the choir, going on a mission trip, feeding the homeless, or mowing the church yard.  And of course, all these activities are good and needed.

All of us learn from what we are taught, and more so, from what we have caught!  My idea of service, that I gleaned from watching others, is to do things for God and hope those things are pleasing to Him.  I’ve heard prayers like this, “Father, I pray our service is pleasing to You.”  The focus on this “service” is what I do.  If my heart is in the right place, then hopefully God will be happy with me.

Paul says in Romans 14:18, “For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved my men.” (NASB) When I read this verse it seemed to be suggesting the same old dogma: serve God and you will be acceptable.  However, the Greek word for “serves” in this verse is “douleuo.” It means, “to be a slave,” “to obey,” or “submit to.” 

If you owned slaves, what would you consider to be a great slave?  The perfect slave is a slave that does exactly what the master commands.  A disobedient slave is useless.  A slave who loves their master and has the best of intentions to serve their master by predicting the master’s needs is equally useless.  The master doesn’t need a slave who goes out there and tries to anticipate what might please the master.  The master needs an obedient slave that listens first, and then acts.

Serving Christ is not about you and I doing anything for God.  Because we are new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), our core desire is to serve God.  So how do we serve Him if it is not by offering our gifts and talents to Him?  Jesus Christ is the only person who has ever lived the “Christian” life perfectly; no human has ever come close.  The scripture tells us we have Christ in us (Rom. 8:10; Gal. 2:20).  Our only hope to live the Christian life is through Christ.  God is asking us to let Christ live His Life in, with, and through us. 

In every moment of our life, we must submit to or “douleuo” Christ in us.  We don’t have to anticipate what might please God and then activate our gifts and talents for Him.  I believe God appreciates our intentions, but this kind of service is ultimately useless.  This kind of service is focused on me and what I am doing for God.  Does this kind of behavior sound familiar?  The Bible calls it flesh!

Paul says in Galatians 5:13, "For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."  "Serve" is the same Greek word. Isn't it interesting that Paul is talking about freedom and serving one another like a slave in the same sentence?  Our real freedom doesn't come from what we can do, but rather what He can do through us. That freedom requires us to submit to Christ.

Romans 7:6 says, "But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter."  Again, Paul is using the language of slavery to illustrate that true freedom comes from submitting to Christ in relationship.  The Law was about obedience to rules that brought a blessing if obeyed and a curse if disobeyed.  Our "serve" or submission is in the newness of the Spirit.  It is relational, not occupational.

We are designed to serve Christ.  When Christ (Emmanuel) lived His life here on this earth, He expressed God’s love to those around Him, those who came in contact with Him.  He did that perfectly!  He still has the same desire now.  He has placed His Life in each of us and wants to continue expressing God’s love to the world.  When we submit ourselves to Him in every moment, we are serving Him.  He is able to express His Life to those with whom we come in contact.  Because He is in every believer, He is connecting with more people everyday than when He walked this earth in the flesh.

I pray you see “service” in a new light.  Don’t see it as a duty, but simply an expression of Christ’s Life in you!

Grace

What is grace?  The most basic definition is “unmerited favor.”  God has been stretching my understanding of grace for the past ten years.  I was amazed to realize the incomprehensible depth of God’s grace toward me.  His grace not only saved me from eternal death by forgiving me of all my sins and making me a new creature, but His grace also enables me to live the Christian life.

It is this second part, grace for living, which was completely new to me.  As a minister of music, I sang many songs about grace from the hymnbooks.  Most of those hymns were about God’s saving grace, but they didn’t mention God’s grace for living.  I was dependent on His grace for salvation, but I was depending on my self-effort to be obedient to God’s commandments for living.  I didn’t realize that was a broken system, even though the outcome of my Christian walk was very broken.

Over the next few years I began to get connected with more people of like-mind.  They too understood this amazing grace and were experiencing the power of God’s grace to effect real victory in living the Christian life.  As I shared what God was showing me, there were many who received this news with gladness.  However, there were also those who were suspect of this “freedom” and saw it either as license or sinless perfection.  Through those two distorted lenses, even I could see how “grace for living” could be rejected.

I began to notice among the “grace” crowd this “us and them” language.  There was something that bothered me deeply about this; something deep inside that said this wasn’t right.  Others noticed this also and sadly abandoned the truth of God’s life giving grace for a watered-down version of grace.  It was a mix of law and grace.  To them that sounded and felt safer.

Within this mixed law and grace thinking, grace becomes nothing more than an action word.  “I should show them grace.” Or “I didn’t mean to do that.  Please give me some grace.”  In this system, grace is a commodity to be given as you deem the other worthy.  Of course, in this system you hope others will give you this grace if you make a mistake. 

Within the “grace” crowd, grace sometimes seems to be a secret knowledge given to those who have understanding.  I have been guilty of saying, “I wish they would get grace.”  It is almost assumed that you can only practice grace if you understand it.  For those who don’t consider themselves a part of this “grace” crowd, they have felt criticized by those of us who understand what it means to live by God’s grace.  They feel like they are on the outside of some exclusive club.  (Of course, when we look down on those who don’t understand grace, we are not expressing God’s grace!)

The greatest revelation of God’s grace for me is when I understood grace to be a person.  Jesus Christ is the personification of God’s grace.  Grace is Jesus and Jesus is grace.  The scripture says every believer is in-dwelt by Christ (Rom. 8:10; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27).  God’s grace is not based on knowledge, but on the person of Jesus Christ.  Whether I understand grace or not doesn’t determine if I have grace.  If I am a container of Christ’s Life, then I have grace. 

I have seen the most legalistic Christians display grace.  I now realize they are expressing Christ in those moments.  I have seen Christians with a deep understanding of God’s grace display the nastiest flesh.  In those moments they are not walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-17). 

There is no “us and them” among believers, we are all one in Christ.  Our Source to live the Christian life is the same.  Our Source is Christ.  We cannot intellectualize grace and then live a life of grace without the empowerment of Christ in us.  That is Paul’s confession in Galatians 2:20, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” 

So what is the advantage of “knowing” about grace?  It can be compared to having a bank account with a million dollars.  If you know about the account, you can intentionally spend money from the account.  If you don’t know about the account, you can’t intentionally spend from it.  But more importantly, God wants us to know about His amazing gift of grace, a gift He has given in abundance (Rom. 5:17).

What does grace or this unmerited favor look like?  It looks like love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, humility, and forbearance (Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 4:2).  Grace looks at the heart before it looks at the behavior.  Grace works from the inside-out, not the other way around.  God did not change our behavior in order to draw us into a relationship with Him; He changed our nature.  Now, His grace pulls that nature out of us and changes our behavior!

Whether one believes this about grace or not doesn’t change the fact that we have a spiritual account with unfathomable riches.  We are all people of grace because we have grace personified living in us.  Now, go out there and spend your inheritance!

Citizen of a Different World

This holiday season has been challenging. For a few years now I take the last week or two of the year off from "work" to either work around the house or visit family out of state. This year we opted to hang out around the house. I had visions of grandeur as to what I would accomplish. To say the least, it has not gone as I planned. Instead of accomplishing tasks as I had hoped, it feels like my life has been on pause!

This is the condition of my circumstances that has led to Father reminding me of who I really am. I find myself trying to make a life here. When I say "here," I mean in this world. I have dreams of owning some property in the country where I can have a garden, a smoke house, and maybe some chickens. If there is enough land, I could also hunt there. Yeah, I'm a country boy at heart!

As the thought of living somewhere other than where I am and the reality that I currently cannot do anything to change that hit me; I had a sudden urge to "feel" down. I looked at Tess and said, "we have to decide where we're going to live. We are either going to live in this world or we are going to live in eternity." In that moment, Father reminded me that I am not of this world. This holiday season, I think I have been trying to make a life here.

All of us have to decide where we are going to live. I found a definition of "alien" from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition: "differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility." Peter said in 1 Peter 2:11, "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul." My "strong desire" to make a life here in this world is nothing more than fleshly lust. Don't get me wrong, it is okay to have desires. The Bible says God gives us the desires of our heart. (Ps. 37:4) When we pursue desires to get our needs met apart from God we experience the frustration of living from the flesh.

Jesus said in John 17:14, "“I have given them Your word; and ^the world has hated them, because ^they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." We have to live in this world, but we are not of this world. So what does that practically mean? It means my "life" needs aren't met by this world. It really doesn't matter where I live, what I drive, what I wear, what I do, or who I know. Being in this world, I will live somewhere, I will wear something, I will drive something, I will do things, and I will know people. Being a citizen of eternity, however, will determine how I experience these things. 

Finish this statement, "I will be happy when....." I was putting a house in the country in that blank. Sometimes I put "being understood" in the blank. There are many things we can put in the blank, but apart from knowing God it is flesh.  

This morning I asked myself a hard question, "what is the passion of your heart?" I was again reminded that I love knowing God and making Him known. Some will amen that last statement and immediately translate that into a "doing" statement. Cliches will roll off the tongue about spreading the gospel through evangelism and missions. That in and of itself is still trying to make a place in this world through "doing" something. Father wants us to focus on knowing Him, period! As I know Him, my thoughts, my behaviors, and my emotions express Him in everyday life here in this world. You may look at me and see evangelism and missions, but I see Christ in me, expressing His Life in me.

God Is the Architect and Builder

“By faith he (Abraham) lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:9-10, NASB)

All of us are looking for contentment in this life. We also want our lives to make a difference and amount to something of which our families and friends can be proud. The question is, though, how are you and I pursuing what we would describe as a successful life?

Abraham lived in the land of promise 100 years. It wasn't until Joshua led the children of Israel into the promised land before they actually possessed the land. It was around 430 years between God promising the land to Abraham and Joshua possessing the land. Even though Abraham lived in the promised land for 100 years, he was still considered a stranger in the land.

When I lived in Montana I noticed a peculiar convention among the native Montanans. To them it mattered what generation Montanan you were. I remember hearing one man telling me with a cynical attitude that he was only a third generation Montanan. He said his family was considered fairly new to the state! That blew my mind. That probably meant that his family had only been in the state around fifty years. To me that was a long time!

Abraham was a wealthy and well-respected man. He had enough money and power to buy and secure a good life for him and his family. Even though he had influence and power, he waited for God to fulfill His promise. It did not matter that he lived in the "promised" land; God's timing is what mattered to Abraham. He had already experienced the frustration and failure of trying to accomplish God's plan on his own.

I don't know about you, but I have experienced my share of trying to control my life. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” (NASB) "Death" is whatever you and I experience when we attempt to control our lives. The New Testament refers to this way of operating as "flesh." Jesus said, "...the flesh profits nothing!" (John 6:63b NASB)

I want my life to matter. I'm tired of trying to be in control. Do you realize what it would mean for me to be in control? I would have to be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent! That is impossible, yet sometimes I have reacted in disappointment to an unmet expectation as though I should have been able to control my circumstances.

This life is one continuous opportunity to trust the One who can be trusted. God is the architect and the builder. Jesus continued to say in John 6:63, "the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life."

Thank You Father for Your Life!