Serving only themselves

These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; - Jude 1v12

I suspect that the purpose of describing false teachers to us so clearly is two-fold. One is to warn us about them and the other is to warn us not to act like them and to give us a warning about our own lives.

One of the characteristics of these false teachers is that they do whatever they do, not to serve God, not to serve others, but to only serve themselves. Everything they do, even supposedly for God’s work, is for them. They only serve if they can profit. There is no servant’s heart and no attitude of love for the brethren. It is all about them.

Instead of looking at others, maybe we should take just a moment for some self examination. What motivates us to serve? Is it all about us? Do we serve because of what we get out of it? Are we willing to serve even when it requires sacrifice, doing without, and a lack of recognition? Why do we serve? Only we can answer that for ourselves.

Our service should be motivated solely by a desire to glorify our God. We do that when we love Him supremely and love our neighbour. We do that when we really don’t matter because we trust Him implicitly to sort out the details for us.

Who are we serving? Really, from our heart of hearts, who do we serve? Why do we do what we do? If we are truly serving Him the everyday tests, trials, and difficulties that we encounter are not really going to matter.