"A Life of Service"

God has constructed the Christian life in such a fashion that we can derive power from the "pleasure of obedience." This force is achieved as we remove our lives from the center of our experiences, and dethrone our egos to make way for God to occupy the "ruling chair" in the center of our souls. This power is to enable us to don the apron, as Jesus did, and pickup the basin to wash the feet of all the needy the Father sends our way. Ours lives, as His disciples, is to be a life designed for service. Only as we serve are we obedient, only as we are obedient do we please God, and only in pleasing the Father do we experience His joy. When we please God, His empowerment for service is released in us and the process begins again.

Such simple obedience and service to our follow humans wins the smile of the Father. Christ perfectly submitted to this divine plan to which the Father uttered, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Obedience to this plan for our lives accomplishes several things. First, it emotionally keeps us from getting too wrapped up in ourselves. Second, it delivers us from our tendency to live self-centered lives. Third, it introduces us to the built-in joy of serving others.

Some Christians have come to believe that Jesus died not only to purchase our salvation through His meritorious death on the Cross, but that He also died so that we can be deliriously happy, having the slightest want and desire met for the rest of our lives. Actually, Jesus died to save us from our most basic sin -- the sin of putting ourselves before God. Jesus died in obedience to the Father's plan and illustrates that we too can live in obedience to the Father's plan for our life.

Humans are designed to fulfill the moral will of God, but the Fall of Adam plunged us all into living self-centered lives. It took Christ's death to show us that pleasing the Father comes as we serve others. In reality, Jesus is not the "goody-box" that replaces our old self-help books. He is the living Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased.

Some have rightly taught that Christ sanctifies our religious life, but He does that and more! Christ came that all areas of our lives, that which is religious and that which is outside the church, might be lived in obedience to the Father. Jesus taught us to really consider the idea that we should be pleasing to God with the totality of our lives. Only when we see that all of life is the arena of His will can we begin to truly please the Father and release His pleasure with us. In the vernacular of the day, "we must live holistic lives"- where every waking moment is the on-going forum of His pleasure.