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“We don’t have anyone to teach Sunday school today. I need you to do it.”

“But I don’t teach . . . ” I started to say. Yet the look in my husband’s eyes stopped me. I sighed and nodded my head. We were short on volunteers, and someone had to fill in. I guess I was better than no one at all.

Resolved to my fate, I stepped into the classroom. Trepidation and uncertainty filled my heart. I didn’t know what I was doing. What if I made a mess of things? What if I couldn’t manage the class? What if . . . ?

That was about four years ago, and I have been teaching that same class ever since. Around that time we had a church crisis of sorts. Without a pastor and down a number of families, we were in a situation where either everyone chipped in to do their part, or we would have to shut our doors.

Servanthood Puts Aside Personal Needs

Our church crisis served as a catalyst to push me beyond my own comforts and into exploring the true depths of what servanthood really means. Servanthood is uncomfortable. It requires putting your own needs aside for someone else. It’s humbling, thankless, and hard. Not only is it hard, but the act of serving can also inconvenience and interrupt our own purposes and plans.

On the same night he was to sacrifice his life for the sins of his people, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus the Messiah, bent down and washed the filth and muck off of the same feet of those who would soon run away in fear when the authorities came to arrest him. He then instructed them to follow his example: “You also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13: 14-15). He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men . . . he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death” (Phil. 2:5-8).

Service makes us uncomfortable and empties us of pride and self-exaltation.

For this reluctant servant, I had to face the truth that when my heart refuses to serve the body, I am in some way mocking the service of Christ himself. When I say a task isn’t appropriate for me to do, I am saying that I am better than my master. And when I limit my service for the sake of the kingdom to only what makes me comfortable, I am saying that Christ and his body just isn’t worth the effort.

He Makes Us Capable

Whatever the reason for your reluctance—be it lack of time, skill, or sleep—God does not expect you to serve out of your own inherent abilities. As this reluctant servant has learned, God does not call the capable, he makes capable the called. He doesn’t give us a task and then expect us to figure out how to do it on our own. Rather, he provides everything we need to serve him through his Spirit.

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). God gives us spiritual gifts to serve the body. Through the power of the Spirit at work in us we serve in ways that we are not naturally capable of doing. This is why Peter, who frequently spoke out of turn and without thinking, could then by the Spirit at work in him preach the sermon found in Acts 2. God works through and in spite of our weaknesses to fulfill his calling on our lives.

It started with a Sunday school class that then moved into teaching a ladies Bible study. My lessons in servanthood also led me to hosting small groups in my home and then in serving on our pastoral search committee. Through it all, God made me capable to his calling for me. I’ve learned that while servanthood is hard and often uncomfortable, there is nothing to fear in serving Christ and his body, for he always provides the tools necessary to complete the task. When it comes to servanthood, we make the sweetest music together when everyone performs their part to bring praise and glory to the One who came and first served us.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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