Jesus commanded that we serve one another, but obeying this mandate in humility is not natural for us. Sure, there are times we like to help others. But service that involves self-sacrifice–especially for someone we deem undeserving–much more difficult to do.

What does it mean to serve? Consider Christ’s example. He gave up everything in heaven to live among us, subjecting Himself to dishonor and human frailty. And He loved even those who rejected Him. Think about how He humbled Himself and washedthe disciples’ feet at Passover. This was a disgusting, lowly task that a slave might be assigned–far from anything a king should do. He even knew these men were about to abandon Him but served them anyway.

Ultimately, Christ gave His life for us. And He did so while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). Serving others was His lifestyle–part of who He was and what He did. As His followers, we should strive to be like Him.

Therefore, service involves first dying to our selfish attitudes and motives. Only then can we live to glorify Christ. Jesus said that the greatest commandments are to love God wholeheartedly and to love others (Matt. 22:37-39). Ironically, it is only when we humbly serve others that we experience God’s fullness in our own lives.

Many try to achieve happiness by striving after their own desires. The result? Tired, unsatisfied people. True contentment happens only when we walk closely with Jesus. He shows where we can humble ourselves and take care of others. These actions, done through His strength, will be blessed.

Most scholars agree that the Enlightenment or Age of Reason, which began in the early seventeenth century, set up the great false dichotomy of our time.(1) The great “dichotomy” of the Enlightenment entailed the separation of the public and private realms. The public realm was the world of ascertained by reason alone. Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin explains, “The thinkers of the Enlightenment spoke of their age as the age of reason…by which human beings could attain (at least in principle) to a complete understanding of, and thus a full mastery of, nature—of reality in all its forms. Reason, so understood, is sovereign in this enterprise.”(2) In the realm of reason, therefore, revelation from a divine realm was not needed. Human reason could search out and know all the facts about reality, and “no alleged divine revelation, no tradition however ancient, and no dogma however hallowed has the right to veto its exercise.”(3)  

 The realm of religious belief was now relegated to the realm of private value and private purpose. It wasn’t that the Enlightenment dichotomy cut out God. Rather, it created a distinction between “natural” religion—God’s existence and the moral laws known by all and demonstrable by reason—and “revealed” religion—doctrines as taught by the Bible and the church. The latter realm, dominant in the Middle Ages and the Reformation, came under increasing attack and was eventually relegated to private expression. 

 Fueled by scientific and philosophical discoveries, the view of the world as the venue of God’s providence and rule, shifted to the view that sovereign reason could discover all that was necessary to advance humanity toward its highest destiny. All of Christianity’s supernatural claims and all of its revelatory content were unnecessary in a world where the creator had endowed human beings with enough reason to discern what was important simply by looking at the great book of nature. The autonomous, rational human became the arbiter of truth and knowledge, and that was enough.

 What emerged from this dichotomy was the belief that the real world was a world of cause and effect, of material bodies guided solely by mathematically stable laws. It was believed, then, that to have discovered the “cause” of something was to have explained it. There was no need to invoke “purpose” or “design” as an explanation any longer. 

 And yet, purpose remains an inescapable element in human life. Newbigin argues: “Human beings do entertain purposes and set out to achieve them. The immense achievements of modern science themselves are, very obviously, the outcome of the purposeful effortsof hundreds of thousands of men and women dedicated to the achievement of something that is valuable—a true understanding of how things are.”(4) Hence, persisting in the belief that science, for example, is value and purpose free belies an intentional rejection of what is really true. The pursuit of science to find causes for effects devoid of any larger purpose will ultimately end in the elimination of all ideals. The very zeal that seeks to explain a world without purpose is a purpose in and of itself.

 Proclaiming that purpose infuses human endeavor, and as such, that purposeful human endeavor points to purposeful design and design to a designer will not necessarily convince those who see a world only of mechanical cause and effect. Yet, scratch below the surface of the most strident materialists, and one uncovers a yearning for something more than what can be understood by reason alone. As atheist Sam Harris wrote: “This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call ‘spiritual.'”(5) 

 The gospel of John suggests that reason and revelation need not be dichotomized. In his explanation of the significance of Jesus Christ, truth is ultimately and completely revealed in a person: “The Word (logos) became flesh and dwelt among us.” John describes the divine principle that undergirds all things, as the Greeks understood the Logos, as embodied in the human person, Jesus. True knowledge and purpose meet in the Word made flesh, and in his life, death, and resurrection we have a new starting point for reason. The resurrection is indeed the very basis “for the perpetual praise of God who not only creates order out of chaos, but also breaks through fixed orders to create ever-new situations of surprise and joy.”(6) The risen Jesus breaks the false dichotomy of reason that seeks to imprison revelation, and in his very being embodies purpose and meaning. In the person of Christ, reason finds its hope and reality its purpose.

 Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington. 

 (1) Stanley Grenz and Roger Olsen, 20th Century Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 16-17.
(2) Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 25.
(3) Ibid., 25.
(4) Ibid., 35.
(5) Sam Harris, The End of Faith (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004), 227.
(6) Ibid., 150.

Morning “For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations,

like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the

earth.” Amos 9:9

 Every sifting comes by divine command and permission. Satan must ask leave

before he can lay a finger upon Job. Nay, more, in some sense our siftings are

directly the work of heaven, for the text says, “I will sift the house of

Israel.” Satan, like a drudge, may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy the corn;

but the overruling hand of the Master is accomplishing the purity of the grain

by the very process which the enemy intended to be destructive. Precious, but

much sifted corn of the Lord’s floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the

Lord directeth both flail and sieve to his own glory, and to thine eternal

profit.  

The Lord Jesus will surely use the fan which is in his hand, and will divide the

precious from the vile. All are not Israel that are of Israel; the heap on the

barn floor is not clean provender, and hence the winnowing process must be

performed. In the sieve true weight alone has power. Husks and chaff being

devoid of substance must fly before the wind, and only solid corn will remain.

 Observe the complete safety of the Lord’s wheat; even the least grain has a

promise of preservation. God himself sifts, and therefore it is stern and

terrible work; he sifts them in all places, “among all nations”; he sifts them

in the most effectual manner, “like as corn is sifted in a sieve”; and yet for

all this, not the smallest, lightest, or most shrivelled grain, is permitted to

fall to the ground. Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the

Lord, a shepherd would not lose one sheep, nor a jeweller one diamond, nor a

mother one child, nor a man one limb of his body, nor will the Lord lose one of

his redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord’s, we may

 rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.

 

Evening “Straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.” Mark 1:18

 When they heard the call of Jesus, Simon and Andrew obeyed at once without

demur. If we would always, punctually and with resolute zeal, put in practice

what we hear upon the spot, or at the first fit occasion, our attendance at the

means of grace, and our reading of good books, could not fail to enrich us

spiritually. He will not lose his loaf who has taken care at once to eat it,

neither can he be deprived of the benefit of the doctrine who has already acted

upon it. Most readers and hearers become moved so far as to purpose to amend;

but, alas! the proposal is a blossom which has not been knit, and therefore no

fruit comes of it; they wait, they waver, and then they forget, till, like

 the ponds in nights of frost, when the sun shines by day, they are only thawed

in time to be frozen again. That fatal to-morrow is blood-red with the murder of

fair resolutions; it is the slaughter-house of the innocents. We are very

concerned that our little book of “Evening Readings” should not be fruitless,

and therefore we pray that readers may not be readers only, but doers, of the

word. The practice of truth is the most profitable reading of it. Should the

reader be impressed with any duty while perusing these pages, let him hasten to

fulfil it before the holy glow has departed from his soul, and let him leave his

nets, and all that he has, sooner than be found rebellious to the

 Master’s call. Do not give place to the devil by delay! Haste while opportunity

and quickening are in happy conjunction. Do not be caught in your own nets, but

break the meshes of worldliness, and away where glory calls you. Happy is the

writer who shall meet with readers resolved to carry out his teachings: his

harvest shall be a hundredfold, and his Master shall have great honour. Would to

God that such might be our reward upon these brief meditations and hurried

hints. Grant it, O Lord, unto thy servant!

 

My beloved is mine, and I am his; he grazes among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on cleft mountains.  Song of Songs 2:16-17 

Surely if there is a happy verse in the Bible it is this—”My beloved is mine, and I am his.” It is so peaceful, so full of assurance, so overflowing with happiness and contentment, that it might well have been written by the same hand that penned the Twenty-third Psalm. Yet though the prospect is very bright and lovely—as fair a scene as earth can display—it is not an entirely sunlit landscape. There is a cloud in the sky, which casts a shadow over the scene. Listen: “Until the day breathes and the shadows flee.”

There is a word, too, about the “cleft mountains,” or “the mountains of division,” and to our love, anything like division is bitterness. Beloved, this may be your present state of mind. You do not doubt your salvation, you know that Christ is yours, but you are not feasting with Him. You understand your vital interest in Him, so that you do not have a shadow of a doubt about being His and of His being yours, but still His left hand is not under your head, nor does His right hand embrace you. A shade of sadness is cast over your heart, perhaps by affliction, certainly by the temporary absence of your Lord, so that even while exclaiming, “I am his,” you are forced to take to your knees and to pray, “Until the day breathes, and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved.”

“Where is He?” asks the soul. And the answer comes, “He grazes among the lilies.” If we would find Christ, we must get into communion with His people, we must come to the ordinances with His saints. Oh, for an evening glimpse of Him! Oh, to eat with Him tonight!

Family Reading Plan

Isaiah 51

Revelation 21