Serving and doing versus receiving and being

There is an account in John 13: 1-17 of Jesus taking the role of a servant and washing his disciples feet, and of Peter, in the first instance, objecting to this role as he saw his role as serving Christ. Of course, Peter's objection is from the best of motives, but note well Jesus' response - it is hard and uncompromising: 'Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.' So, we must learn to receive his blessing, his healing, his cleansing, and be served, before we then, follow his example, and serve others by doing.

What we cannot therefore do is assume that we are already equipped for service by virtue of our enthusiasm or commitment, or some other personal strength or quality. We can only be strengthened for service if God first lives in us through Christ our saviour. However, this reality is often harder to accept than we think. As a result, being served by Christ is more of an on-going process rather than one-off event, and where we must continually die to self - i.e. the self that always wants to say, it is me, I have done it, I can serve well my master, let me do it! No, we must let him do it through us, and so wait on him to serve us first!

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