What is Service?
Learning to use our gifts to love one another.
Service is the spiritual discipline of intentionally offering our time, energy, gifts, and lives for the good of God and others. Dallas Willard defines it saying, “In service we engage our goods and strength in the active promotion of the good of others and the causes of God in our world.” When we serve one-another, it is a genuine act of love and righteousness, as Paul says, “present your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).
When we practice serving, we train ourselves away from envy, arrogance, resentment or covetousness, to self-forgetfulness, which is how serving becomes a spiritual discipline for our life. Serving provides a freedom to love others with no strings attached, because as Paul says in Colossians 3:22-24, “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” When we serve God’s people, we are serving Christ, because Christ is the head of the body, the Church.
Jesus is the ultimate model for serving as He says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). And Jesus showed us the depth of service by washing His disciples feet in John 13:14-16 saying, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.”
The discipline of service trains us to move beyond self-centeredness and become people who gladly give ourselves away. David Mathis in his book, Habits of Grace, emphasizes that God's grace is not only received through private practices but also through the ordinary ways we give ourselves to others in love. Through service, God forms us into the kind of people who are attentive to the needs around us and ready to act.
Each of us has received a spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit to use to serve and build up the body of Christ (1 Peter 4:10). A maturing disciple of Christ is passionate about identifying that gift, letting people speak into it, growing in it, and using it to build up the Kingdom of God through the Church (Romans 12:4-8). To learn more about your spiritual gift, click here, and while signing up enter access code: F33427.