Relational Disciplines (4)

“If I then, yourLord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” John 13.14, 15

Seeking leads to serving
Jesus did not come to earth, rent a building in Jerusalem, and hang out a sign that said, “Religion at 11.” That is, He did not expect the lost and needy of His world to find their way to Him.

He went looking for them, seeking them up and down, among the downcast and unlovely as well as among the well-off, high-placed, and powerful. Jesus sought people, walking throughout Judea, Galilee, Samaria, and beyond, reaching out to others as the embodiment of a new Kingdom of love that had come near by His words and works.

And, more often than not, as Jesus went about seeking others, He ended up serving them according to the needs they presented before Him. If we seek others faithfully, soon enough the Lord will open doors of opportunity for us to serve them with His love.

The nature of service
Jesus gave us an example of true service when He washed the disciples’ feet in that upper room. By analyzing that situation we can discover key aspects of a life of service, and begin practicing those disciplines in our own Personal Mission Fields.

So let’s note the following: First, serving others begins in setting your own interests and needs aside (Jn. 13.1-4). Jesus was about to be treacherously betrayed, falsely tried, and brutally crucified. Yet He did not allow His own concerns to dominate in that upper room. More important than what was on His mind was the opportunity to love His disciples and to teach them what it means to love one another.

The Apostle Paul put it this way: “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2.4). Then he pointed to the example of Jesus, Who came among us as a Servant. Serving others begins in self-denial, setting our own interests aside in order to be available to others.

Second, note that Jesus identified the opportunity for serving. He was alert to the need that presented before Him, and He quickly diagnosed what must take place for that need to be met. If we’re paying attention to people, praying for them and engaging them regularly and sincerely, God will begin to show us ways we might serve them so as to meet some need in their lives, whether small or large.

Third, Jesus prepared Himself to serve His disciples. He gathered the necessary equipment, dressed Himself accordingly, organized the room, and got started with His work. As we begin to discern the needs of people around us, even if it’s just for more consistent encouragement or affirmation, or assistance with some routine task, we can prepare each day in our times of prayer and planning to step up to the opportunity and lend a kind word or a helping hand.

This is not to suggest that we can meet everybody’s needs, or even that we’ll always be able to serve every person or need that presents before us. But by becoming more servant-minded and practicing the disciplines of self-denial, discernment, and preparation, we’ll be in a better position to serve others as we can, and thus to touch them with the love of Jesus.

Serving by words and deeds
Our contemporary approach to Christian life and ministry is so skewed and distorted as to cause many, if not most, of us to miss the significance of Jesus’ example of service. We tend to think of service in terms of programs or church-sponsored activities. We participate in drives or campaigns to help the poor, give up a Saturday morning to work at the rescue mission, or help prepare meals for the elderly once a week. All these examples of love concentrated are important, and we must not fail to do them as we are able.

But the larger New Testament teaching is not of love merely concentrated, but of love diffused – like light, salt, or leaven, penetrating into the nooks and crannies of society, dispelling the darkness, preserving all that is good, and bringing wholesomeness to light amid the stale loaves of a narcissistic social order. Believers become agents of diffused love by their daily words and deeds – words that edify, encourage, comfort, and please, and works that assist, support, or complement the works of others.

Every believer is called to love after the example of Jesus by making the most of the opportunities for serving others that present each day in his or her Personal Mission Field (Eph. 5.15-17). The more we can become consistent in the everyday opportunities to serve, the more convincing and powerful will be those concentrated labors of love that we take on as congregations.

Jesus gave us an example of how to love others, and that example is one of serving. Today is the day of salvation, and so today is the day we must serve others with the Kingdom love of Jesus Christ.

Next steps: Today, what are some things others might do in order to serve you – to encourage or assist you in your normal daily responsibilities? Following the Golden Rule, how might you do such things as these for the people around you? Try living this way today, and see what opportunities for serving others might crop up all around you.

T. M. Moore

This week’s study, Relational Disciplines, is part 4 of a 7-part series on The Disciplined Life, and is available as a free download by clicking here. We have prepared a special worksheet to help you begin getting your disciplines in proper shape for seeking the Kingdom. Write to T. M. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for you free PDF of the “Disciplined Life Worksheet.”

A rightly-disciplined life requires a Kingdom vision, and that vision is centered on Jesus Christ exalted. T. M. has prepared a series of meditations on the glorious vision of Christ, based on Scripture and insights from the Celtic Christian tradition. Order your copy of Be Thou My Vision by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.