We need to know who we are serving

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:24-34 (TNIV)

Service is important. From the introduction, you might have been thinking this week would be like a management textbook on service, full of clever theories or urgent calls to improve or perish. We’ll certainly meet challenges this week, but we need to be clear on where those challenges come from, what we need to work hard for, and what we don’t need to worry about.

Jesus is clear that our first priority in service is God. Everything else we are meant to do comes from our commitment to serve God. It’s that simple.

Service is doing something to meet needs and wants. Jesus shows us here that before we served others, even before we chose to follow Jesus, God served us. In the creation of the world, God provided for our needs, and God carries on providing for us. God knows what we need and has promised to take care of us. This can, and should, make our priorities different from those of people who don’t know God.

Sometimes we think we have to balance serving God with trying to serve other interests or serve ourselves – fulfil our desires, or simply meet our practical needs. Do we have time to think about others when we have to worry first about ourselves? Jesus is totally clear on this – we can’t serve two masters. We’re not to try and balance our church life and service against our other practical needs. This is not a suggestion or even a command from Jesus – he is simply pointing out that trying to serve two masters, e.g. God and Money, is impossible. The good news is that not only is it impossible, it’s unnecessary, because God loves us. (He has even given us privileged status, calling us friends and family.)

Jesus tells us what to seek – God’s kingdom and his righteousness – we should be looking to live and work the way God intended us to, for him, serving him and other people. God’s promise is that our own needs will be met – and because we don’t need to worry about our own needs, we can concentrate more on serving others than on the need to be served ourselves.

To consider and pray throughout today

• How much do I trust God to provide for my needs? How much do I try and get independently?
• How much do I worry, and what do I worry about? Is God telling me to worry less?
• What does serving God mean? What does God need or want, and what can I do about it?