Why we serve

I don't know if you've had cause to browse lists of job advertisements lately. How does this one take your fancy? "For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake." (Acts 9:16).

That, of course, is the apostle Paul. "I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily", he wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:32). "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you." (2 Corinthians 4:11-12).

That was Paul's service. He was a disciple of Jesus Christ, the cross-bearer. Jesus taught that if anyone wishes to be his disciple, then he must take up his cross - to die to self - daily. Cross-bearing is not a special event in the Christian life: it is the Christian life. The Christian says "today, I choose to give away my life for others, for Jesus' sake". Ship-wrecked, stoned, naked, hungry, in constant danger, exhausted, beaten, imprisoned for years, etc.: this was the life Paul chose. Death worked in him: but what glorious life has worked in so many others, because of the choice he made.

I was touched by this in reading Acts 13 this morning:

"⁵⁰ But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. "

There it is: more death. Expelled from the reason. The great ones of the region against them, and they had to leave and go elsewhere. But what about two lines later?

⁵² And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Ah. That's why we serve.  That's why we choose, each day, to give away our lives. Death works in us: but life in you. Lord, it's hard, it's very hard. But, it's not the hard life of living still for self: that's the other sort of death. The sort without any resurrection in it: just barren death, leading to eternal death. We who take up the cross see Jesus, the risen one. After the cross, there was the resurrection. And we know as well that one day we'll be where he is. Death worked in him: and because of that, life works in us too.