From Roger Brooks
Associate Minister of Music and Youth
Serving in Love
Philippians 2:5-8
February always reminds us of love and being loved. In February we have Valentine's Day and for myself my wife's birthday. Pinks and reds and hearts and chocolates are the colors, shapes and confections of the month. Receiving cards and flowers and gifts expressing the giver's deep love for the receiver, this is the month for LOVE. But if we truly want to love others we need to give more then we receive. We need to serve instead of being served. In February, Lynn will be leading us through Psalm, Proverbs and Parables that deal with parenting and families. We can show great amounts of love in both of these areas of life. We can serve our spouses and children not out of compulsion but rather out of love. We need these gentile reminders that serving others is the key to true love. By serving we love one another in a far better way than chocolates and cards can ever do. Paul in the book of Philippians reminds us of how Christ served us.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
No greater demonstration of love has ever been seen then the passion that Christ showed us. The one and only LORD of the universe lowered Himself to the level of a servant to be a sacrifice and overcome the grave. That is love and our attitude should mirror that of our Christ. We need to consider service to be of greater importance than that of equality. This is what Christ did. He found it more important to serve mankind's needs then to share glory with the Father. We need to remember that serving our families is greater than being served by our family. Likewise we need to consider service to the church to be a far greater an endeavor then being served by the church. We are Christians and Christians don't just say that they love, they show that they love. We need to sacrifice our time, money, talents, everything in the serve of the King and families. Just as Christ held nothing back we must give our all.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us ( Romans 5:8 ). This month let us demonstrate Christian love by seeking ways to serve as Christian parents and families.
