John 12.26 states, anyone who wants to serve Me must follow Me, because My servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves Me.

God feels like an option. We do what we want to do with apparently little to no consequence for our behavior; at least in the short term. I am not speaking about breaking the laws of society but about doing the will of God in society.

If there really is a God, it seems like He could and even should demand our loyalty and allegiance and that we would willingly give Him both.

Indeed, when God lived among us as one of us He did demand both our loyalty and allegiance. Since God does not mitigate immediate consequences for our inaction’s it feels like He doesn’t care if we do what He wants. God promises to reserve His reward and His judgement for the end of our lives.

His plan is for us to attend class the entire semester to take only one exam, the final exam. In the meantime, every day counts for every day determines how well we will do on that final exam. So He says, we must follow Him if we are to serve Him which is what is required for God to honor us as His own on that day when we meet Him face to face.

What we are to do is fairly easy to understand: I must follow Jesus so I can serve Jesus. The harder question to answer is, where is Jesus?

He says through His various stories that He is with all those who are in need. When we serve people in need we serve Jesus Who is with them. The difficulty is seeing people in need. Not the huckster on the corner with a cardboard sign who gets picked up after a few hours by their friend in the new car.

People with real needs usually don’t advertise. They suffer silently, crying out only to God Who hears their prayers then moves toward them to comfort them. The physical hands and feet He uses to demonstrate His compassion, care and concern are those of His servants. God is already with the brokenhearted though they may still feel alone and isolated – as does God, until His servant arrives with the necessary help.

The strange workings of God are that He seldom works alone and almost never chooses to do so. God always invites His people to join Him in what He is doing so that they can experience Him and His joy as well as the joy of others when we serve alongside God for the glory of His Son Jesus.

The challenge is for us to move slowly and intentionally enough to hear and see the brokenhearted and recognize that God is with them waiting for His Servant to arrive with help.