Service to Others

This is week three in a 5 week series on Service to Others

Week three
What’s in it for me?

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34

When folks are “too nice”, we often suspect that they have ulterior motives. It seems rare to find people who bestow kindness when they have nothing to gain.

Truly unselfish love can only come from God. This is the kind of love described in those familiar verses in the Gospel of John: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 and John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

God had nothing to gain by loving the world except fellowship with His creation. That is all He asks of us: to love Him and to be loved by Him. Yet He came down to earth and suffered the cruelest of human fates so that He could be with us forever.

Sometimes the way we take advantage of His love seems blatantly shameful. Too often when we come before God’s presence, our first tendency is to pull out our wish list: “God since I know I have your attention…” Instead of asking only for selfish benefits, we need to ask God to give us hearts that have a passion for communion with Him. We need to thank Him for unequaled love He shows us – and ask Him to help us show that same love to others.

May God grant us the grace to seek Him for the sake of selfless, unpretentious love. There is no other way we can do it, for He is the only source of such unselfish love.

Are you serving others only for show? Are you doing things to get praises or to serve with unselfish love?

Father, there is no fountain of life besides you. When I love, let it be with the love of Christ. When I hate, let it be only what you hate.