Serving Others vs Serving Self

I had someone tell me recently that, “It’s all well and good to worry about your neighbors needs, but in the end a person needs to make sure they’re right.” Right, as in “right” with God. Ever since then I can’t seem to get this out of my head. I can’t be sure, but I think they may have been trying to say that I spend too much time preaching about serving others rather than personal holiness. Maybe that’s true, I do tend to focus more on the Christian life being most fully expressed when we deny ourselves and serve others, better known as “loving your neighbor.”

Mark 12:28-34

²⁸One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

²⁹“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

³²“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. ³³To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
^34aWhen Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Pay particular attention to verse 33. This teacher of the law had come to the realization that there was something more important than acts of personal holiness. That is, loving God, and loving neighbor. Because of this, Jesus tells him that he is “not far from the kingdom of God.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I am after all a Methodist. I believe in holiness of heart and life. I just don’t believe that you can separate holiness from serving others.

And what about Matt. 25:34-46? Here the disciples have gathered with Jesus for the last supper. Jesus is teaching them, trying to prepare them for what is to come. And he washes their feet. This is a supreme act of subservence. The washing of someone elses feet was a task reserved only for slaves. Jesus tells them to go and do likewise. He wasn’t telling them to go around and start washing everyone’s feet. He was telling them to serve.

Mike Waters, in Spreading the Word, wrote, “Our Lord and Savior set a superlative example of serving others during his brief three-year ministry… A study of the life of Christ will reveal a character unconcerned with the serving of self. Jesus took advantage of every opportunity to instill this same trait in his disciples Christ wanted his disciples to understand that they must learn to think little of serving self and much of serving others” (Spreading the Word, Vol. 3, No. 8, March/April 1991).

And for reflection consider the following verses…

James 2:14-17

Matthew 25:34-46

I’d love to know what you think. Follow this link or the comment link at the end of the post and tell me.