Article March 20, 2000 Issue

THE REWARDS OF SERVICE

David Newbern

Millions of people who are donating time to worthy causes and providing care for family members and friends draw comfort from the words of Jesus, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

For years, I interpreted these words to mean that I had to sacrifice my body and time to find God's love. At that point, I associated sacrifice with self-deprivation. I contributed time to worthy causes and spent many hours working for family and friends, expecting this to lead me to a greater sense of love. But none of this caused me to feel more loved or closer to God.

So I asked myself, do Jesus' words require us literally to sacrifice everything in our lives to find God's love? Mrs. Eddy gives a spiritual view of sacrifice in Science and Health: "Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science" (p. 568). This statement led me to try to find a more spiritual understanding of Jesus' words. In the Bible, I found Paul's instruction "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Rom. 12:1).

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