Romans 12:13-14: A Serving Love

Romans 12:13-14 “Contribute to the needs of God's people [sharing in the necessities of the saints]; pursue the practice of hospitality. Bless those who persecute you [who are cruel in their attitude toward you]; bless and do not curse them.” (Amplified)

Love, this glorious abstract ideal which we celebrate this day, shows up so much in the Bible that we can never seem to get away from it. Love becomes so involved and so inextricably wound up in our daily walk that we can never seem to get away from it. Even in this section of scripture Paul speaks on what is involved with the practice of love. No, he does not need to talk about the qualities of love, he already covered that in another letter. He speaks on what love shown through our living is to be like. First, he reminded us about genuine love and then he wrote about a dangerous, risk taking love. Now Paul moves on to a serving love.

A serving love sounds pretty easy. After all, when we love someone, we want to do things for them. The thing here is that we have to be reminded about serving since the object of our love may not be the direct recipient of our service. Our love for Jesus is shown through our service to others, saints and sinners alike. I know that I, myself, have problems remembering all the time that when I serve and help others, no matter how frustrating it may be or how upset they can make me, I am really serving Jesus. Its hard to remember this! I get so caught up in the momentary, day-to-day rat race that I find that I frequently have to remind myself that I am a child of God, forgiven, redeemed, and expected to live a fully obedient life in His service.

When Paul writes lists in his letters, he typically begins with an obvious yet striking statement. As he continues the list his statements build on each other. So why then did he place serving love after dangerous love? To me, the answer is that you have to have a dangerous, a risk taking love, not afraid to take a spill or fail to be able to truly serve. When you serve others, you put yourself totally at their mercy. They may take advantage of you or they may put you in a position that causes you pain and trauma, having to make tough decisions. When you serve others, you no longer serve yourself. A genuine love stems from the right source, and a dangerous love is not afraid and is fervent in spirit. Both of these, however, can be self serving. Its easy to take all sorts of risks for myself, but what about taking risks for others? Thats difficult! I find that whenever I have a hard time serving others, in reality I have become wrapped up with serving myself.

This week, let us remind ourselves to practice a serving love, fully willing to take the risk of failure or even appearing foolish in the eyes of others. Let us be genuinely serving as we pursue a closer-knit, more full life walking in His footsteps. He has set tasks for us, He has called us and led us to where we are right now, let us make the most of it! Our battle cry this week must be “For His Glory, for His Honor, through His love!”

Though the work of life be lowly,
Let me true and faithful be;
This the thought that makes it holy—
Christ has set the task for me.