The heart behind our service

People 'serve' for different reasons. Some do service hoping to find favour with gods. Some do it to compensate for some bad things they have done. Many serve because they love their reputation before people. But none of these is counted as service by God who looks at the motives behind our works. Jesus says that those who do good in order to be seen by people will not receive any reward from God (Mt.6:1). If they manage to impress some people, that will be the maximum reward they will enjoy, but that is not from God. Imagine when one day they see that all that they did hoping for reward has not even been recognised by God!

But then there are a few who serve because they love God and the people they serve. They are not looking for any rewards but they serve because they are burdened when they see some need around them and they serve. It says that Jesus healed so many people because He felt compassion for them. One thing we must specially note is that He healed all who came to Him, and He seems to have done most healings even without making enquiries about their backgrounds and judging them so as to see if they deserved healing. There are a few recorded instances where He went into discussing with the ones who came to Him about their situations, but we get the impression that He healed most people without doing that.

In our day, we know many factors that can be there behind the needs people present before us. Especially if we are used to counselling, we will try to go 'deeper' than just the outward healing. I am not saying here that we should not do that or we need not. But my focus here is on understanding the heart of compassion that led Jesus to heal everyone who came to Him.

When we serve like this, we have the heart of a servant. This heart of the servant is about loving others as being more important than ourselves and doing whatever we can to help them (Php.2:3). This is not about a 'servant-mentality' where we have a low self-image. Jesus knew who He was, and He was not desperately trying to hold on to position and recognition. But His love for the weak and the downtrodden led Him to serve them, and He did not consider it to be demeaning to Himself (Jn.13:1). He washed the feet of His disciples as a Servant even when He knew He was the King of kings.

We can test ourselves to see how much of a serving heart we have by looking at how much we are thinking when we serve of people who are observing us or who will get to know what we have done. Many do all their deeds to be seen by men. Many enjoy being watched by men when they are serving. But Jesus wants us to receive a heart that will serve others preferably secretly, or if that cannot be done, to have a heart that will care less and less for the applause of men.

This requires a change in our understanding and our way of thinking. To change from our old self-centred ways to God-centred and other-centred ways, we need to make a decision to pursue that change.