Serving Others

I was reading my daily devotional from Purpose Driven Life, and it was about serving others. Which has been in my thoughts and heavily on my mind lately. I lack the true ability at times to fulfill what I thought was my purpose as a friend. To serve others, and sorely lacked at the task of truly serving the Godly way. So this devotional helped me to put things into perspective.
So here goes. See if any of this makes sense! It said the power of God enables your service(Eph. 3:20) tells us that God's "mighty power at work within us...is able to accomplish infinitly more than we would ever dare to ask or hope." Don't ever allow your vision of what is possible in serving others to be limited by what you see as your own strength and resourses. Wow I've been doing that this whole the time. Not allowing God to take the lead.
Another thing is to serve not be served. Sometimed I just want to be served, after all I deserve this right? Wrong how dare I think I deserve this, when I haven't earned this honor. God served everyone no one ever served him. The writing said Serve, not served (Mark 10:45) Jesus came as a servant (Phil.2:5-7) telling his disciples "I Am among you as one who serves." (Luke 22:27) Take a look at three or four of your closet relationships and ask "How can I serve this person?" Than list specific ways you can serve them as Christ would. Man what a challenge! Am I up to this task and which four friends do I choose? Right about now my first instinct is to hide my head in the sand and not come up for along time. Will I measure up to the task at hand? It's pretty bad when you talk to yourself. Self needs to step up to the plate , take the challenge.
The mind of Christ guides your service Mari. In (Phil.4:8) Paul gives us a grid to filter out anything that is not consistent with the mind of Christ. If an image is not true, honorable, right, pure,lovely or of good report, if a thought is not excellent and praiseworthy, it is to be filtered out by the mind of Christ. So as not to find a landing place in us.
Now that I have a guideline this should be easy! So why is it a struggle day after day? Daily there is a short falling on my part. Continually the struggle is there to get it right. My service lacks at times.So daily in my prayers I lift my short comings to the Lord. Literally laying them at his feet. With each passing day it's becoming easier to accomplish. One baby step at a time is slow, but better than no step at all. Continually the Savior lifts up this humble heart, reassures me. He carries me through strenghting me, helping me to endure, to win the hard fought battle of serving with the right motives. This grateful servant clings to his promises daily. Knowing that through it all I'll be guided by the true servant of all.