One of the main ways we worship God is through our self-sacrificial service of others. God desires that we help our brothers and sisters to live more effectively as the priests they already are. One primary way we accomplish this is by carrying out the multitude of one-anothers in scripture.
The one-anothers are, by definition, a two way street. We love others; they love us. We serve others; they serve us. We admonish others, they admonish us. In light of this, we must be careful to give others opportunity to act as priests toward us. We must be willing to accept service.
There is a tendency (and I'm not sure why this exists) among some Christians to be always serving but not receiving it. If you ask them if they need help, they almost always say no. I think they do this because they don't want to cause any work for anyone else; therefore, their motives seem pure. However, in doing this they actually stunt the growth of their brothers and sisters. This is because they are keeping them from serving.
The one-anothers have a reciprocal nature. We all grow up together in Christ as we serve one another. We help others grow by one anothering together. This involves both giving and receiving. If we only focus on the giving, we end up inadvertently hurting both ourselves and others.
The New Testament is plural not singular. The authors intend body life to be full of reciprocal one-anothering. When this happens, the body grows in both health and maturity. Even more importantly, God is worshipped through back-and-forth priestly service.
2 comments:
That's something I have always struggled with. Some of it is not wanting to bother others and some of it is pride. Seeing it as helping others learn to live as priests really helps. Thanks for writing this.
co_heir,
I'm always glad if anything I wrote helps someone else. It makes it worth blogging.
As for the priestly give-and-take, it's easier for me to write about it than to live it. I guess it just takes practice like most anything else.
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