Servants of Jesus Christ Serving Each Other

Jesus Christ is to be our MASTER. Jesus, himself, said “no man can serve two masters.” In the same section Jesus also talks about “the eye being single”. This is referring to the single minded attention a servant must have toward his master. We only have two eyes and they cannot be focused on two things at once.

When we carried out God’s instructions in Romans 10:9 and 10; we SAID (confessed) that Jesus is LORD. We said (confessed) that Jesus is the Master and that we wanted Him to be OUR MASTER. If Jesus is indeed our MASTER, then we cannot serve both HIM and ourselves at the same time. If Jesus is our Lord and Master, then we are under obligation to DO as He says and to obey His voice. If we are going to be able to really serve Him, we must make Him the object of our devotion and attention.

The New Testament is full of references to us “serving each other”. Not only are we servants of our Lord Jesus Christ; we are to serve each other in love. The great and simple key to understanding is that we are SERVANTS of Jesus Christ as we SERVE one another in love. We look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith to know how to best serve each other within the body of Christ.

We cannot serve Christ, for He is not here to place a blanket around or bring a cup of hot tea. We are His servants, but the ones we are to serve are His people. The last night he was with his disciples, he gave them an example of service which was to carry them through the upcoming years. He got on the floor and cleaned their feet. He lovingly cleansed the dirt and the grime off the most disgusting part of the human body. In Oriental culture, there was no greater way of showing humility towards another than to wash their feet.

Service takes humility. There is NO room for pride, arrogance or haughtiness in service. Christian service demands placing one’s own needs and desires in complete subjection to the desires of the master. The Master’s desire is to see his people blessed, fed, healed and comforted. To do this takes getting down on the floor and washing their feet.

It has taken me my whole life to learn this lesson I am sharing with you now. When we got born again, we made a commitment to make Jesus Christ Lord in our lives. To do this demands subjection of our will and desires to HIS. We have to become His servants and not servants to ourselves, our jobs or SIN. Learning to obey is learning how to be His servant. Learning to look at HIM and not at the world, or at people or ourselves is HOW we learn the heart of a servant.

Once we learn HOW to live our lives looking at Him, then we can serve others as He would if He were here. We are His servants in the sense that we are His hands, and feet. We are to be to others, exactly what He would be if He were here. That is the meaning of being an “ambassador for Christ” and this is what Christian service is to be all about. We are to be the ones on the floor gently cleaning the filth of this world off the feet of those who want to be made clean.

We cannot “save” anyone, for that is God’s job. We cannot “heal” anyone, for only God can do that. We can only do what our Lord left for us as an example, and that is to be broken bread for those who are hungry and examples of our Lord’s life and love. Helping others is not always a matter of “beating them over the head with the Gospel”. Many times it is simply manifesting the sincere love of God through lending a hand or offering help when needed.

A voice from the fourteenth century, St. Teresa of Avila, reminds us that WE are God's hands.

"God has no hands but our hands to do his work today; God has no feet but our feet to lead others in his way; God has no voice but our voice to tell others how he died; and, God has no help but our help to lead them to his side."

A gentleman once took the liberty of refining St. Teresa’s prayer as follows:

"God has no hands but our handswith which to give His people bread.God has no feet but our feetwith which to walk among the almost dead.We say that we are His, and He is ours.Deeds are the proof of this, not words,And these are the proving hours."

Oswald Chambers asks the question, "Are we willing to be broken bread and poured out wine in Jesus Christ's hands for others?" I pray our answer is YES on all counts.