Thursday, January 20, 2005
The Greatest of These is....
Last night we had a birthday party where the birthday girl didn’t show up! Oh well, we went ahead and ate, called her, and she arrived to open gifts. We of course had a good time anyway.
We are talking in class about developing the fruit of love in our lives. I pointed to the fact that the love that God commands us to have is always demonstrated. We then talked about the discipline it takes to demonstrate love, and that is of course service. I made the point that service is commanded by God not because of filling the need of others but what is does for us to be servants. That is logical and true, and yet until we see the needs of others we can’t get past the pride that keeps us from giving. We talked a lot about giving secretly or anonymously but when I thought about this more during the night I realized that we do get ourselves out of the way when we truly focus on the needs of others. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with wanting to know if we do fill this need and the person is blessed by our giving. Again, does focusing on the other person’s reaction or blessing not take us out of the limelight? We confuse wanting to know the good that is done with pride in doing it. I was thinking of the Hallmark commercials where the lady picks up bears or whatever and pictures the reaction of the person when they receive the gift. That is O.K. isn’t it? I think the important thing is that to love as God loves we will serve. When we serve for awhile we will love. Pride will always have to be dealt with. Even those men who spent all their time with Jesus had arguments about who was the greatest.
I am going to strive in 2005 to open my eyes to those whom I can serve. Maybe even with the sacrifice of my time. I would challenge you to do the same. And I would love to know what you think about the anonymity part of it all.
We are talking in class about developing the fruit of love in our lives. I pointed to the fact that the love that God commands us to have is always demonstrated. We then talked about the discipline it takes to demonstrate love, and that is of course service. I made the point that service is commanded by God not because of filling the need of others but what is does for us to be servants. That is logical and true, and yet until we see the needs of others we can’t get past the pride that keeps us from giving. We talked a lot about giving secretly or anonymously but when I thought about this more during the night I realized that we do get ourselves out of the way when we truly focus on the needs of others. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with wanting to know if we do fill this need and the person is blessed by our giving. Again, does focusing on the other person’s reaction or blessing not take us out of the limelight? We confuse wanting to know the good that is done with pride in doing it. I was thinking of the Hallmark commercials where the lady picks up bears or whatever and pictures the reaction of the person when they receive the gift. That is O.K. isn’t it? I think the important thing is that to love as God loves we will serve. When we serve for awhile we will love. Pride will always have to be dealt with. Even those men who spent all their time with Jesus had arguments about who was the greatest.
I am going to strive in 2005 to open my eyes to those whom I can serve. Maybe even with the sacrifice of my time. I would challenge you to do the same. And I would love to know what you think about the anonymity part of it all.
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I don't know that anonymity is that important to me. Depends on my mooooood...LOL! I will admit I struggle with wanting praise sometimes, and the myriad reasons behind that desire. Do I want it for me or to be able to lay it at Jesus' feet? Of course, that leads into do I want others to notice when I lay it at His feet...?
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