“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15b
We serve God with Christ.
Joshua served the Lord. First, because he believed in God’s promise to lead His people into the promised land. He trusted in God’s help. Unlike the other spies, he was not discouraged when he discovered the difficulties that awaited them in Canaan (Num 14:6-9). Having taken over from Moses, he led the people into the promised land. At the end of his life, he called the people together to remind them that God had kept His promise. He committed to continue to serve the Lord, with all His house, out of thankfulness for all He had done for them.
We believe in the promises the Lord has made to us and we are thankful for what He has already done for us. It is sometimes said that the Christian faith is based on the “already’ and the “not yet.” Jesus preached the kingdom of God. It is yet to come, but it can already be experienced today. Christ has definitively overcome evil, but the full consequences of His victory are not yet visible. We are already children of God, but what we will be is not yet revealed (1 Jn 3:2).
We believe in God’s promise to lead us into His kingdom, where we can serve and reign with Christ. And we are thankful for His blessings. That is why we have decided to serve Him.
We serve God by:
- Attending the divine service to worship and give thanks to Him;
- Submitting to His authority—servants of God, we accept His will as Mary did (Lk 1:38);
- Contributing to His work of salvation—we help our neighbor to find and follow the path of salvation. We want them to discover, through us, the love that God has for them. We do not want to serve God like the people of the Old Covenant, but as true disciples of Christ. We serve God with Christ:
- We serve Him out of love, not out of self-interest. We serve Him alone (Mt 4:10), without turning to other “gods” to satisfy our desires;
- We do not seek our own glory, but follow Jesus’s advice “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Mt 6:2-4);
- Unlike the rich young man, we value our fellowship with Jesus more than our material wellbeing (Mt 19:16-22);
- We accept that our commitment to God does not preserve us from affliction (Mt 16:21-23);
- We are not followers of John the Baptist who expect God to punish the sinner. We are not Pharisees, who assume the right to judge and punish the sinner (Jn 8:3-11);
- We understand that the commandment of love takes priority over the precepts of the law (Mt 5:23-24);
- Our goal is not to dominate, but to serve (Lk 22:24-26). Like Joshua, we want “our house” to serve the Lord. We have neither the right nor the authority to force those in our care to serve God. All we can do is inspire our neighbors to follow our example. We can only do this by being sincere and true (v.14):
- Our thankfulness is only true if it results from our humility—we know that we owe everything to God and that we can do nothing without Him;
- True faith leads to perseverance—we trust God and continue to serve Him even in the absence of visible results;
- Our love for God is sincere if it does not depend on what happens in the world, the behavior of those around us, the opinion of the majority or our own situation;
- We are willing to sacrifice everything that hinders our fellowship with Christ;
- Our love for our neighbor is sincere if we wish that all may obtain what is promised to us, without claiming to deserve more than others.
We serve God because we believe in His promise and are thankful for His blessings. We serve Him by following Jesus Christ’s example. It is through the sincerity of our commitment that we can inspire those around us to serve God.