Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” Serving others is not just kindness or a humanitarian effort, it is gospel living. “Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). Serving others is letting our light shine “that they may see [our] good works and glorify [our] Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
We often think of serving others by taking someone a meal, cleaning up after an event, or helping with a flat tire. In the littlest of classrooms here at the CDC, we care for the children, change and feed them, help them make a craft, and so on. And through the years to high school we help them find their classroom, understand a math problem, or get their locker open. David served Mephibosheth, meeting his needs. The Philippian church cared for Paul’s needs. Jesus told His disciples, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). God puts a premium on serving others. But we know there is more to serving others than just meeting these kinds of needs.
One of the greatest privileges we have as educators is life-on-life discipleship with the children in our care. Not only do we help children increase in knowledge, but we have the opportunity daily to model and share Christ in our lives. At a young age, a child might need counsel about why it’s not okay to take another’s toy, to bite a friend, or to disobey the teacher’s voice. We disciple by the way we value God’s Word and His ways and by the way we respond in a Christlike manner in various situations. As the children grow older, we help them navigate with biblical principles through resisting peer pressure, dealing with disappointments and pain, and making wise choices.
In Eternal Impact: Investing in the Lives of Men, Phil Downer points out that we live our lives with significance when we duplicate ourselves in the lives of others. This is what Jesus did with His twelve disciples. He spent His earthly adult life with 12 men modeling, admonishing, instructing and living His life before them. The disciples learned what it meant to have mountain-moving faith, to love sinners without compromise and without partiality, to be mistreated and suffer yet not retaliate, and to commune with and depend on God. This life-on-life serving takes time, can be exhausting, and usually gets messy, but it is eternally rewarding. It is the gospel being lived out day by day.
Jesus chose 12 disciples and lived out His life before them. He served them by investing in them. Paul had Timothy, Philemon had Onesimus, Barnabas had John Mark, and Mordecai had Esther. Let your light shine by making disciples. As 2 Timothy 2:2 exhorts, “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
Bob Jones Academy exists to assist like-minded Christian parents in challenging students to love Jesus Christ, to embrace God’s truth, to exercise integrity, to pursue excellence, and to serve others.
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