You BelongSample

You Belong for Service

God has called you to do something. If you are not sure what that something is, doing nothing in the meantime will get you nowhere. Throughout the Gospels we see a picture of service that Jesus himself painted in many beautiful ways. Mark 10:45 outlines how Jesus came to serve. If you have been in church for any length of time, you probably already knew that. However, I believe most of us fail to grasp how eager Jesus was to serve— even to the point of becoming illogical. Jesus’s attitude did not allow a “waiting on the Lord to show me” mentality. On the contrary, his mindset was more along the lines of, “waiting on the Lord to stop me.”  Not in a rebellious fashion, but in a way that showed he was ready to serve until he absolutely couldn’t.

In Luke 8:40, Jesus had just returned to a crowd that was waiting for him. I can only wonder how long this crowd had been waiting. What purpose did they have for simply waiting? Perhaps they were lingering in the hope that Jesus would deliver a deep, theological oration. Perchance they had some questions about the parables that he told them earlier. While we don’t know why the entire crowd was there waiting for him, we do know why one man showed up to see Jesus. Jairus had a daughter who was sick and near death. Despite the entire crowd, this desperate father pleaded for Jesus to come and heal his dying daughter.

What was Jesus to do? Was he to leave the crowd to help one single person? After all, most would agree that our effectiveness is determined by the size of the crowd. To our surprise, Jesus leaves the crowd. Why? Not to take away from his sensitivity to the Spirit of God, but perhaps Jesus’s eagerness to serve outweighed his ego. His willingness to help one dying daughter led him to a place where logic would again be defied. Jesus shows us that sometimes the how, where, and why are not the most important. You belong for service, somehow and somewhere. Do something!