Service

Sometimes I forget what I've been put on this earth to do.

I'm not talking about teaching high school or playing basketball or traveling the world. I'm talking about serving people. My good friend Jason Patterson (http://www.jasonmpatterson.com/) talks sometimes about how God is forever trying to get us to move from being selfish to becoming selfless.

It seems that many of Jesus' teachings had this as a theme. He said that his mission on earth was not to be served, but rather to serve. This is the mission of all Christ-ians (those who follow Christ; the Christ-like ones).

I've found myself often in this past week and a half giving in to selfishness. I often become far too self-conscious. By this I mean that I am conscious only of myself. The problem with being self-conscious is that the more self-conscious you are, the less God-conscious and others-conscious you can be. And so instead of risking my own comfort for the sake of God or for the sake of others, I focus on my comfort at the expense of God or the expense of others.

This is the role of a servant. A servant does whatever is best for his master. The Bible tells us that we are born as servants to sin. We are prone to give into this desire to be selfish. Therefore, a servant of sin does what is best for his own desires at the expense of what is right.

But God challenges us to be servants of others. This means that rather than staying comfortable in my selfishness, I risk my own comfort for the sake of someone else. A servant does not look to be promoted, and he cannot be demoted to a lower position. This was the role of Christ, and this is the role of Christ-ians. It is a move, a shift, from being selfish to becoming selfless.

That is what each of us has been put on this earth to do.