Yesterday I paid the end-of-the-month bills. The largest one, the one we never expected to have in our old age, was the mortgage payment. I looked at the bill in order to be sure I made the check out appropriately and laughed out loud. It said, “Mortgage Servicing Company.” This is the company we cannot get to answer our phone calls or letters. In fact, when we sent a follow up letter complaining because they had never answered the first, we finally received a reply that said, “We already got this request so we are ignoring this letter. We are still thinking about it.” That was nearly two years ago. So much for “servicing.” We are supposed to service them with our money, while they do nothing at all to service us except complain if we ask a question.
Yet after all these years, I recognize the problem because it has found its way into the Lord’s Body too. Probably 90% of the complaints I hear about local congregations are from people who think they should receive more service than they give, if they give any at all. Have we forgotten whom we worship, the greatest Servant of all? Do we have any idea what the word “disciple” means, learning to follow in His footsteps? No, we are focused on what we want, what is comfortable or convenient for us, what we believe we need, and how no one is giving us those things.
What we ought to be asking ourselves is, do I do for them what I am expecting them to do for me? No one visited me in the hospital. How many have I visited in the hospital in the past month? No one called when I missed a couple of weeks ago. How many have I called? No one invited me into their home. How many have I invited into mine? And we usually have excuses for why we haven’t that seem perfectly legitimate to us. Why won’t we assume our brothers and sisters have equally legitimate reasons? [Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things 1 Cor 4:7. Could it be that my love for others is lacking?
I have noticed that when I focus too much on myself, my trials, my hardships, the problems of life that come my way, I will inevitably lose my focus on my brothers and sisters in the Lord and the needs of the Body. Once I leave my pity party (they are not much fun anyway!) and begin to serve the needs of others, my mood improves, my energy grows, and I am happy and even eager to do for others. That is what being a servant of the Lord is all about. We should teach that from the beginning. Paul obviously did because as soon as he converted Lydia she besought us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us Acts16:15. This woman knew what being a disciple of Christ was all about, and it was not all about her.
Would that we would all learn what a brand new babe in Christ seemed to automatically know.
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen1Pet 4:8-11
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor Gal 6:2-4
Dene Ward
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