He Made Serving Others a Priority

Talk about "me" time!

**This post is part of the current series "Who Was Jesus?  Practical Ways to Teach Our Children About Who Christ IS"  You can find the entire series linked up here when we are done.**

Think about our world today.  About what our children are watching on television.  We have slowly and steadily been fed a diet of slogans that beg us to examine our activities and adjust them to make sure we get the most out of life.  We are told if something hurts, don't do it.  If it costs too much, go into debt to get it to get it NOW.

Fast food restaurants have found their way into our grocery store freezers to help busy moms make more time for themselves.  Almost every aspect of our lives has been invaded by a "I need it now and if I can't have it now I won't be happy attitude". 

Unfortunately for many people - for many families - they look at Christianity, at GOD, in the same light.    We want our prayers answered NOW.  We fill our lives with practices, games, activities, trips, shopping, television, facebook, blogging..... we have wound ourselves up so tight with schedules and shuffling kids from one event to the other that we get stressed out that we don't have any extra time.  We say that God is a priority, but on Sunday morning are we are too exhausted from the week's worth of events to worship him with all of our hearts and minds?  Jesus was the ultimate servant.  He was the ultimate time manager.  Despite distractions from his own disciples, he stayed the course on what he came to earth to do.  Jesus taught the disciples that the true meaning of greatness is humilty and service.  How did he treat those he came into contact with? 


Does this mean that we need to bend over backwards to serve others?  To cram more service projects into our already busy schedules?  Certainly not.  Think about the attitude of Jesus.  Start by reading Chapter 5 of the book of Mark.  Jesus had been teaching and traveling for many days.  No doubt he was a little weary and eager to have a little time to himself.  In fact, he was tired enough to sleep through a pretty big storm... and had to be woken up by the diciples who were afraid for their lives!  He gets to the shore and is bombarded with a demon possed man, a man wanting Jesus to heal his daughter, a sick woman, and a father whose daughter had died.  And not once does he tell anyone that he can not come because he is too busy.  He does not sigh or roll his eyes and ask his disciples to pencil it in or put it on his schedule of things to do.  He goes. 



Serving others doesn't always mean literally. 
We can start by developing a
servant's heart towards
those we love most...  our family.



As followers of Jesus, we find ourselves in a daily battle to uphold the faith in our lives, our families, our children and it can certainly get tiring.  As followers of Jesus, we can be certain that we will face constant battles from our secular culture that we must be prepared to engage in if we are to win our families to Christ (much less others!).  Jesus never promised life as a disicple would be easy, nor the moment to moment choices we must make that we encounter.  So how can we teach our children to make serving God and serving others a priority?  Here are a few questions we can ask ourselves to make sure our priorities stay in check...



1.  How can we arange our lives to allow for commitment to God to be our highest allegiance? 

2.  How willing are we to arrange our calendars and checkbooks in ways that demonstrate God as our first priority?

3.  In what ways do we struggle to love others as much as we say we love God?

4.  Is our live in order to the degree that we can confront hypocrites with a clean conscience?

5.  Do we genuinely seek to live out our faith?  Do our actions support our words?

Father God, before I can teach my children about making you the right priority, I need to do battle for Christ inside of me.  I must place proper priority on You.  I need to ensure that I am more than the words that I say.  I want to take time Lord to take a personal inventory of where I spend my time, where I spend my money, and for whom I compassion.  I want my life to be aligned with Your priorities in every way so that my children will learn Your ways from me.  I want to reflect Your heart, Your love, Your attitude when serving others and to not feel like it is one  more thing on a giant list of things to do.  In your name, amen.