A Willingness to Serve | Tomorrow's World

A Willingness to Serve

25th April 2015
Lehman B. Lyons Jr.
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My parents have always been given to hospitality. They would encourage their children to bring friends “over to the house.” This invitation would enable us, their children, to have an opportunity to share enjoyable times with our friends and allow our parents to become better acquainted with our peers. We, as teenagers lacking the understanding of the physical effects a houseful of youngsters placed on two adults, would invite the “whole gang” to spend the night, and to leave from our home when we would be traveling with a group to an out-of-town event. Good times for everyone, right?

Well, instead of regretting their original decision to even have children, my parents would provide for the entire entourage comfortable arrangements for sleeping, an enjoyable, home cooked meal for dinner and a warm breakfast in the morning to equip everyone for the road trip. Their willingness to serve made our home a landmark of hospitality in the minds of any guests.

From time to time, we find ourselves in a position to serve but the question is posed—do we perform the deed as drudgery or do we tackle that service with a willing attitude? There are examples of individuals that were called into service but there are few who add to that call a willingness to serve. God’s word shows us some historic examples of people who added this extra ingredient.

Moses was a man miraculously protected by God as a child to be trained and educated in the house of royalty of the time while staying connected to his own heritage by family members that remained in his life. After a tragic incident in which he intervenes in a dispute between a countryman and an Egyptian, Moses flees to live a somewhat obscure life. God calls him to service and he returns to Egypt to lead God’s people from slavery. Yet his willingness to serve is shown during the situation surrounding the golden calf (Exodus 32:7–14).

Moses intercedes for the lives of the Israelites even though he knew that they had sinned greatly. He also served his God by showing devotion to the mission at hand.

Educated in the finest schools of his day, Paul, or Saul as he was known at that time, took on a personal mission to persecute the church established by Jesus Christ. Yet after a physical and spiritual blindness was lifted from him, he was given the calling to administer these same principles to not only the people who he had terrorized but also to Gentiles. Yet above and beyond this calling, his willingness to serve drove this agitator-turned-apostle to fulfill his God-inspired obligation while enduring numerous human challenges (2 Corinthians 11:22–28).

The ultimate example of a willingness to serve is Jesus Christ. Predestined from the foundation of the world to empty Himself of God’s power, He was sent to earth to be tempted as a man, face the rejection of His people and suffer the death of a criminal to provide a way for sinners throughout human existence to be reconciled to God. All this He did. Yet with a remarkable sign of a willingness to serve, Christ, on the night that He was arrested illegally and beaten beyond recognition, took the position of the least servant of a household as He washed the feet of the men that His Father had called to carry His words to the entire world (John 13:3–5).

We all have opportunities that come our way in which we can serve. Sometimes these opportunities are obligations that fall within our area of responsibility. But with a willingness to serve, these opportunities can benefit those blanketed in our service shadow, brighten our outlook of our fellow humans and give glory to our great God and His Son. Our willingness to serve should be foremost in our thinking as we clearly read that it was first in the mind of Jesus Christ (Mark 10:45).

Order the free booklet, “What is a True Christian?” to learn more about how Christ came to serve, and how we can follow in his footsteps.