Put On Love: Serve Them

Colossians 3:12-14 is our focus scripture for this series.

The first week we learned how love was kind of like an old comfy t-shirt that we are supposed to put on everyday. The first aspect of that love was what we called common courtesy. We opened doors for each other, picked up stuff that people dropped and practiced saying "please, thank you, yes sir, no sir, yes mam, no mam, hello and have a good day." Simple stuff, I know. These are fundamentals that are getting missed and simply not used.

This week we are looking at the second aspect of what it looks like to put on love. We are talking about serving. (Parents if you liked what your kids were doing for you this past week, you are going to love this.) Luke 12:37 says that we should gird ourselves to serve and wait on the people at our table. As I looked deeper into what it really meant to "gird himself to serve," it actually gives a picture of someone putting on a belt.

In other words, we as Christ-Followers are commanded to serve people. The Jewish culture viewed hospitality and service as one of the highest codes of moral conduct. Some Rabbis taught that hospitality/service was more critical than your service to God.

Putting someone's needs before our own is so ridiculously important for Christ-Followers and yet it is so hard to accomplish. From birth, we learn that if we cry because we are hungry, we will be fed. If we cry when we need to be changed, we will have our diaper changed. We are taught to let others have a turn playing after we have already had enough time playing first. Am I the only one who heard, "You have played with it long enough, now let him play with it"? We are, in a way, taught to be selfish from the get-go.

That's why this week at dinner your kids will be serving you and whoever you have over first and then they can get their own food or drink after they have completely served everyone else. These kids need to learn how to not be selfish and how to put the needs of others first. They need to learn how to buckle the belt of service on a daily basis.

Love and Service,
Brantley