Love Your Neighbor: Outreach, One Step at a Time Sample

 A Servant’s Heart

A generous person has the attributes of a servant, and a generous person will always be made rich on the inside.

People with a servant’s heart are rare. Self-gratification versus self-denial seems to be the greatest battle all of us face. Even the apostle Paul struggled to find someone with an attitude of a servant. In fact, Timothy was the only one he could think of to use as an illustration (see Philippians 2:19–23).

We are capable of doing so much good. However, how many times do we push our compassion down? Fear holds us back from making an uplifting remark. Weariness dulls our responses and keeps us from extending ourselves to others.

Living with a servant’s attitude is a choice, one that we have to make every day. Someone who has the attitude of a servant possesses the same qualities that we see represented in the life of Jesus:

· Servants serve faithfully even when they are underappreciated. A servant desires to reflect Jesus’ love more than to receive personal praise.

· Servants find joy in dying to themselves. A servant understands that the Kingdom of God is reversed; the more you give of yourself, the less it takes to make you happy.

· Servants have no agenda except Jesus. They love and serve Him by loving and serving others.

Love does not keep score. Love does not contemplate an equal exchange. True love is extreme; it wants the score to be in the other side’s favor and does not mind the lopsided margin.

We preach about achieving balance in our lives, but there is one area in which life should be imbalanced, and that is in serving. Give more than you receive and you will live a happy, imbalanced life, free from the trap of finding your happiness only in receiving approval and material things.

To pray about: Generosity is more than just an act; it is a way of thinking, a way of seeing and a way of living.