“Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another. 11. Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; 12. Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; 13. Distributing to the necessity of the saints.”
These verses from Romans 12 tell us how we should relate to people. Verse 10 tells us to love people, and to “outdo one another in showing honor.” We are not to look out only for ourselves, but consider other people and their contributions. Verse 12 tells us how we should respond to life’s challenges: “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation (trouble, afflictions), persistent in prayer; and helping to meet the needs of the saints. In other words, we are to be selfless in our service. For this article I want to focus on verse 11, which tells us what our attitude should be in Christian service. We are not to be “slothful in business.” The Holman translation of this is “do not lack diligence.” We are not to serve the Lord through the church or in the community in a “who gives a flip” attitude. I am afraid that all too often we go about our service to God in a matter-of-fact way, that says to the world, “I don’t really want to do this, but since nobody else will do it, I guess I will do it.” This goes against the advice in Psalm 100:2, “Serve the Lord with gladness.” We wonder sometimes why visitors do not return to our churches. It could be that the people who visit do not want to be a part of a fellowship where people are not excited about serving the Lord. For example, I don’t think that we preachers need to necessarily be loud, but we do need to be diligent in our presentation. I’ve heard loud preachers who came across as angry more than diligent, and I’ve heard soft-spoken preacher who kept me on the edge of my seat because they were excited about their text. (Of course, it can be vice-versa as well.) We need to be diligent in living the Christian life and in presenting it to the world. We are to be “fervent in spirit.” This means that we are to take our Christian work seriously. It does not necessarily mean that we are to go around the community fervently arguing with people about the Christian life, but conducting ourselves in such a way that people will see Christ in us. We should be excited about the privilege of living and sharing the love of Christ with the world. We should not mistake fervency with negativity. There are times when we need to be negative when we confront the world, but there are more times when we should be fervently patient and fervently loving. As I have written before in Couch Potato articles, we do not need to argue with people about accepting the biblical message about Jesus. When we do that, it becomes “me against him or her,” which is not an ideal situation. I think that people will weigh our behavior more than our words. If we are fervent in spirit, and not just fervent in words, people will pick up on that and are more likely to give us an audience. We are to “serve the Lord.” This means exactly what it says: We need to serve the Lord and not ourselves. We need to serve the Lord instead of serving the church. We are to go out in the name of Jesus, not in the name of our church. (We should invite them to our church.) I am aware that serving the Lord also includes doing service for the church. I love my church and I want people to come to it, but I want them to come to the Lord first, and then serve Him through the church. It doesn’t make any difference what our gifts are or what our particular service is, we are servants of God first and foremost. This is true of every Sunday School teacher, nursery worker, choir member, music director or usher. We are serving the Lord and we should know it and conduct ourselves accordingly. Bro. Joe
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