The least of His brothers.... Matthew 25:31-46
Woodbury Lutheran has some great sheep in its midst. Many people serve in so many different ways. What are some of the ways that you have served in the past, the present, or plan/like to serve in the future? Why do you serve? What are some of the joys or struggles that come with serving? Do you feel that it is important that we all serve "the least of His brothers?" Why or why not?
Chad
Anyhow, in relation to the parable Buchanan wrote: "We are known by our fruit, not by our lack of tree fungus or leaf rot." And issues the challenge to his reader's personal ethic. Do I only want to be lacking tree fungus or bearing fruit?
He also wrote in this chapter about the risk of not being involved. "God becomes less and less real to us. A rumor. An abstraction. A Doctrine. An item for coffeehouse debate before we move on to chatting about our favorite web sites."
Been there, done that. Several years ago I was questioning God and in the vagueness of what I didn't understand. I stopped being intentional and as I did so, God started to become smaller and smaller to me.
I think it's easy to say that we should all be more sacrificial in our time but it's personally harder to do with life's demands. And it's even easier to say you'll just try doing something "more" next year when life's bound to be easier. Pray more, read more, serve more . . .
I serve for many selfish reasons mostly because I need to challenge myself to be out among people and I feel good when there's work that I can do. It's sometimes easier in a work situation or community situation or around WLC to just serve on a team and do the work so I don't stick out like such a "loner" at events.
Serving on teams has also been one of my greatest joys in that I've built relationships with people that I'd never have met without stepping out to serve. On the other side of the coin though, sometimes when I'm focused on a task I don't take enough time to stop and talk and listen to those alongside of me, I get into my car at the end of an evening and wonder who these people really are and why I don't take time to get to know them?
I think we all have amazingly diverse talents. I am richly blessed and the challenge on my heart lately is that I know I should be serving the least of my brothers or at the very least be out sharing their life with enough abandon to reflect the joy that God loves us without us needing to "do" anything. They should know that love too.
I don't think everyone is made to be a missionary but we're all gifted with a mission, to love God and to love our Neighbors. If you start to live that as a mission I imagine the "works" that make people so uncomfortable (because we don't need to do them to get into heaven) those "works" will just "be" a part of who you are without any regard to the reason why you are doing them. (Comment this)