Serve Harder

I don't know about you, but I can be a major responsibility shifter.  If I'm late, its someone elses fault.  If something goes wrong, I can probably find someone who in some way caused it to happen, no matter what my role may have been.  Maybe it didn't even really go wrong, you just think it did.  See, its your fault.

This can also work for things that need doing.  It is so much easier to see what someone else ought to be doing.  I can assign work to others no problem.

In both of these cases, I am helped when the other person really did cause something to go wrong or should do something.

The problem comes when you are a leader.  As a husband and father, I am the leader of my home.  As a pastor, I am a leader of the church.  In both cases, it can be easy for me to assign blame to people and assign work to people.  The house is a mess....its the kids' fault.   There's division at church...its that person's fault.   You know what you should be doing?!

One issue with this approach.  It is unBiblical.  The Bible emphasizes a different approach to leadership.  That of the servant leader.  It means that I don't lead the way the world does.

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. "It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; (Matthew 20:25-27)

So when it comes to my home or to church, if there is a problem, what I need to do is not focus on others, but focus on me.  If the house is a mess, I need to serve harder.  If there is conflict at church, I need to serve harder.  This is easier and more difficult than the world's way.  More difficult because I have to do the work myself instead of passing the buck and the blame.  Easier because I access the power of the Spirit by serving and because people will respond very differently to a servant than to a dictator.

How you serve may take many forms, but it always starts by dying to self.  Instead of first getting after the children or my wife if something at home isn't the way it ought to be, I start by taking the responsibility and the initiative, whether or not it was my fault to begin with.  Then from a position of servanthood, I lead them into the new or better habit.

At church it is the same thing.  I have to take responsibility for the conflict, even if I didn't start or cause it.  From that position, you eliminate defensiveness in others because you are modeling humility.  You lead toward solution instead of trying to pin blame on the other person, even if you think it rightly belongs there.

That is what Jesus did.  There was a huge problem.  There was rebellion and wickedness.  Jesus' solution? Serve Harder.  He took responsibility for the fault and took care of the solution Himself.  It hadn't been His fault at all.  Not even a little.  He repented of sins not His own as if they were His own and paid the price for them.  He leads us in repentence now as we follow in His footsteps and die to self.

Frustrated with someone?  Serve Harder!