Loving God, Loving Others, Loving Ourselves

LOVING GOD, LOVING OTHERS, LOVING OURSELVES

Ministry as Worship

The church in Jerusalem was suffering from famine and persecution. The first
century Christian leaders decided to organize the churches to do something about it. In
Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, he prepared the church to take up a love
offering for needy people in Jerusalem. To inspire them to greater giving, he wrote them
a glowing report about the contribution of the churches in Macedonia. The Macedonians
had limited resources and were facing persecution, yet their generosity overflowed. What
was their secret?

They voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means,
begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints—and
this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the
will of God, to us. (2 Corinthians 8:3–5)

The Macedonians gave sacrificially. But their most important act of self-giving was
not to those in need, but first of all to the Lord.

In the the Great Commandment, the part about loving your neighbor as yourself is
the second half. It depends on the first half: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark
12:30–31). God does not just want our time or our money. God is looking for Christians
who will dedicate their whole selves to the love of the Lord.

Without this passionate love affair with God at the root of our service, we may do
good deeds, but their ultimate value, both to others and to ourselves, will be limited. “If we
lose our ‘first love,’” warns Amy Sherman, “quickly our service to others becomes
mechanical, our touch efficient but cold.” We may find ourselves measuring our efforts
against our expectations and questioning whether it is all really worth it. No doubt about it,
involvement in service ministry is rewarding. But there comes a time when every ministry
worker will feel alone, exhausted, discouraged, even disgusted. Acts of compassion will
seem useless, advocacy for justice will feel ineffective and dry. Only spiritual devotion can
breathe new energy and meaning into service.

Mother Theresa was once asked, “How did you receive your call to serve the poor?”
She answered, “My call is not to serve the poor. My call is to follow Jesus. I have followed
him to the poor.” Jesus’ story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31–46 assures us
that Christ is present in those who hunger and thirst, in those who feel lonely and sick and
rejected. When we reach out to others in need, we touch Jesus. When our lives are
wrapped up in love for Jesus, we rejoice to meet him in “the least of these.” We don’t put
poor persons on a pedestal, but we dedicate our hearts and hands in worship of the God
of the poor. “Our love and compassion for people is in direct relationship with our love for
God,” Rev. Bill Borror says of Media Presbyterian Church’s ministries. “We see Christ in
their eyes, and hopefully they see Christ in our eyes as well.”

Love for God produces obedience to God. True worship means offering ourselves
to God as living sacrifices, to do God’s will and to be conformed to God’s likeness (Rom.
12:1–2). We grow to desire the things God desires, to hate the things God hates, to imitate
God’s character and to pursue God’s priorities. “Out of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt.
12:35). If our hearts and minds are set on Jesus, we will spill out our faith onto those we
serve as a matter of course, rather than out of guilt or desire to please others.

Holistic ministry is thus a form of the “sacrifice of praise” (Jer. 33:11) in which God
delights. We acknowledge that any good thing that we have to share—our resources, our
skills, our life in Christ, even our desire to serve—does not come from us, but is ultimately
God’s gift to and through us. We praise God for the grace of giving, and give out of
gratitude for God’s grace. The more we serve, the more we can see and appreciate God’s
love, grace and mercy toward us and others. The deeper our gratitude, the more
passionate our worship, the more motivated will be our service.

In the wilderness of the world’s needs, our cry can echo the passionate longing of
the psalmist: “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints
for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Ps. 63:1). Our quest for the
living water of Christ merges with our act of giving a cup of water in Christ’s name.

Love God, Love Your Neighbor . . .
Holistic ministry is not only a natural outflowing of our love for God, but is essential
in order to develop a right relationship with God. At the heart of holistic ministry is this
paradox: You can’t truly love and serve people unless you love God. And you can’t truly
love God without loving others. Our relationship with the Lord and our relationships with
other people are inseparable (Mark 12:29–31).

Christ-like love is the cornerstone of holistic ministry. “Above all, clothe yourselves
with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14). It is possible to
advocate for vulnerable people or meet people’s needs without loving them. Here are some
symptoms of a love-less ministry: condescending “do-goodism”; unyielding, task-oriented
busy-ness; “doing for” rather than “doing with”; self-lauding (or self-pitying) self-sacrifice.
. . . St. Paul warned against charity in word and deed without the true “caritas” of love:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become
sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. . . . And though I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
(1 Cor 13:1, 3). But take heart, because “love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8, NKJV).

So where does this overcoming love come from? Compassion is a natural response
to seeing someone in need, but Christ-like love comes only from the Father. Recognizing
our debt to God for his boundless love for us, we rely on God’s grace to share in his
boundless love for others—particularly those who are unloving, unloved, and unlovable. We
are the pipeline for God’s refreshing, living waters to regenerate parched lives.
The coordinator of a food ministry at Faith Assembly of God depends on God each
time she volunteers to love people in Christ’s name. “When we pray in a circle [before the
food distribution], we pray to God to let us see through his eyes,” she says. “We have to
look and know that God loves that person the exact same amount that He loves me.” Just
as Christ became like one of us in order to become our Servant (Phil. 2:5–11), holistic
ministry involves viewing all people as our equals, created precious in God’s image.

. . . as You Love Yourself
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We are incapable of loving and
serving others (family, friends or enemies) if we do not first receive God’s generous,
gracious, unconditional, and unmatchable love for us. The Spirit is calling for us to stay still
and enjoy God’s love. Spending time soaking in God’s loving presence is like the difference
between taking a quick shower and a long, hot, sudsy bath. When we rest in God’s love for
us, we can’t help but radiate that love to others.

Activists often feel that they don’t have time for such luxuries. But if we are not
“rooted and grounded in love” (Eph. 3:17), our ministry may be weakened by a false sense
of inferiority. We may feel that we only matter to God to the extent that we are useful to
God. In contrast, our dignity and worth are based in the knowledge that the Creator of the
universe made us in the divine image and redeemed us at the cross.

To be involved with holistic ministry, we must respect ourselves and stay healthy as
whole persons. How can we fulfill the great commandment, “Love your neighbor as you
love yourself”—unless we love ourselves? Does it make sense to care for other people’s
bodies and neglect our own? Can we reach out in relational ministry to the community with
integrity if our own family relationships are fractured? What message does it send if we
encourage others to come to Jesus but never take time to be with him ourselves? God
desires your holistic well-being as much as that of anyone else you serve.

Jesus sometimes pushed himself so hard that his family thought he had lost his
mind. He skipped meals and went without sleep, when his mission demanded it. But he
also slept when he needed to sleep—even if a storm raged outside (Matt. 8:24). He ate
when his body needed food—even if it offended religious legalists (Mark 2:23–28). Those
who find themselves consistently running ragged, on the edge of physical or emotional
collapse, may be driven not by holistic mission but by a false estimation of their own
importance. Such frenetic activity reflects a lack of trust that God is really in control.
Because we are to love the Lord with our whole selves, getting a good night’s sleep at the
right time can be just as spiritual an act as hosting a late-night revival.

Ronald J. Sider wrote in Living like Jesus:
I dream of a new movement of Christians who immerse all their activity—not just their worship and
evangelism but also their political analysis and cultural engagement—in all-night prayer meetings. I
dream of a movement that thinks as it prays; that plans careful strategies as it surrenders to the spirit;
that prays for both miraculous signs and wonders and also effective social reform; that knows in its
heart that nothing important will happen unless the Spirit blows through its plans.
This dynamic holistic movement begins as Christians submit their whole lives to God
as instruments of his love by the power of the Spirit. We hope you too make this your
dream.

Adapted from Ronald J. Sider, Philip N. Olson and Heidi Rolland Unruh, Churches That Make a Difference: Reaching
Your Community with Good News and Good Works, chapter 6. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker
Book House Company, copyright (c) 2002.