The choir led us to sing the song during
the Praise and Worship session. We sang with all our hearts. The song
reverberated through the hall. The Pastor requested that we take the song again
when he addressed the church. It was as we sang again that the last line of the
chorus caught my attention. It caught fire in my spirit. The line wrapped
itself tightly around my heart. It re-echoed in my mind for days afterwards.
“I live to serve Your majesty.”
The lyrics called out to me, urging an
account of my life;
“Am I living my life to serve my
King?”
“Am I living a life of service to
His Majesty, the Most High God, the King
of all Kings?”
I pondered on these questions for many
days. It is amazing how just one line of a song can weave itself into our
subconscious, becoming a part of our thoughts as we wake up in the morning, as
we doze off to sleep at night and several
times in between. That has been the case with me with this one line in the
chorus of the song; “King of Kings, Majesty” written
by Jarrod Cooper.
What
Kind of Life Are We Living:
Self-focussed?
Philippians 2: 3-4 says “Do not be
selfish;” Admonishing us to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
It also admonishes us not to be concerned only for or look only to our own interest but to be concerned for the
interest of others. The worst thing we can do with our lives is to live only
for ourselves—focussing only on our needs, wants and gains.
The litmus test of living a selfish life as
a Christian is the content of our prayers. Is your prayer more about you,
yourself and everything you want God to do for you? God did not put us on earth
to live for ourselves.
The next pertinent question we need to ask
ourselves is about the motive for what we are doing under the canopy of service
to God. Is it to call attention or bring glory to us? Whose interest is being
served by our service?
When we do not with humility consider
others, we are exhibiting pride and a preoccupation with self. Humility before
God and man is a virtue every child of God need to
strive constantly for. Our humility in service to God is demonstrated when we are concerned about the
interest of others especially those in the household of faith.
Jesus demonstrated humility and selfless
concern for others. We are called as believers to have the same mind as is
Christ. To have the same mindset as Jesus
Christ is to be others focussed.
We also need to note that Jesus did not
serve others out of convenience. It cost Him something—it cost Him His life. We
are self-oriented if we are serving out of convenience.
Others-focussed?
The bottom-line here is that Jesus did not
come to be served but to serve. We have
been called to be like Jesus in every way—to selflessly serve others. We become
more like Jesus as we live a life of service. A life well lived is a life lived
in service of God through service to humanity.
God has given each of us gifts, talents and
abilities. We are to be generous with these different gifts God gave us—using
them to serve and bless others—as faithful stewards of God’s manifold grace
(1Peter 4:10). So that at the end of it all, God gets all the glory, praise and
adoration. The service that you perform does not only supply the needs of the
Lord's people, but it is also overflowing
in many expressions of thanks to God.
I attended the oldest girls’ school in
Lagos, Nigeria—Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Lagos. The Motto of my Alma
mater is In Love Serve One Another. I
learnt about serving others in love from this school.
“The best use of your life is to invest your life in
something that will outlast it” – Rick Warren
I truly concur with Rick Warren. The best
way to live life is to live such that the echo of the impact of the life lived
will continue to resonate long after that life is over. That is the way I want
to live my life, in such a way that I will leave a lasting legacy that will continue
cause an overflow of praise to God.
Serving
The King:
I am serving my King when the things that I
do, the services I render, brings glory and honour to Majestic King of Kings. I
am serving my King when it is all about Him, about pleasing Him and doing His
will. I am indeed serving my King when my act of service is out of submission
and obedience to God and not out of convenience.
In everything Jesus did and said, He
perfectly reflected the heart of the God. We are chosen by God as His
instruments to do His work, to speak out for Him and to show others the
goodness of God, that is, serving at the pleasure of our King.
We are serving the King when our act of
service reveals God’s attribute of goodness, kindness and generosity to others.
How
can we serve our King?
I found a motion song and study for God’s
little ones at the hymnary.org titled “Serving The King” written in 1887 by John Hood, which detailed
just how every part of our bodies can be used to serve the King of Kings
irrespective of how little or insignificant we may think ourselves to be.
“Only a pair of dimpled hands
How can they serve our King?
Some ways of helping others find,
And little love-gifts bring.”
When I live to serve His Majesty, I don’t
need self-efforts. I don’t need strive on my own. I only need to surrender
every part of my being to the work of the Holy Spirit in me. For it is the Holy
Spirit at work in us who points us in the
direction of where the needs we can best serve are.
Here and now, I recommit myself to serve at the
pleasure of my King. I must live each day of my life to serve His Majesty, the
King of Glory, who loves me so much that He gave His only begotten Son for me
and kept me by His might hands.
Dear Friends, what about you? What does it
mean to you to live to serve His Majesty? How would you commit yourself to live
a life worth living, a life that lives behind a lasting legacy?
Honestly, a life worth living is life lived
to serve. A life lived just for self or for this moment alone is a wasted life.
Join me to raise 360 gifts items to bring
about a 360-degree turnaround for good in the lives of two women. One is an amputee.
The other is a wheelchair-bound widow. These gift items will be sold at a Christmas Charity Bazaar in
Geneva. Proceeds from the sales of donated gift items will be used to support
these two women through the provision of prosthesis,
wheelchair and income generating activities.
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