Last week many of you gave your time to serve our community at the Keizer Iris Festival. You may think that picking up trash and so on isn't all that important. But sacrificial service is central to Christian living.

In this week's Message About Purpose and Strategy, I want to stimulate your thinking about service with a couple classic quotes. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: "When Jesus bids us follow him, he bids us come and die." That ties in with what Jesus said about laying down your life as he did. The Bible uses this extreme analogy because death illustrates the severity of commitment and the finality of choice. Another influential Christian writer, A.W. Tozer, wrote, "Discipleship means discipline. In every Christian's heart there is cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among... believers today. We want to be saved, but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king... and wear our tinsel crown...; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility."

The way of Christ is the way of the cross. It requires humility and involves sacrificial service. Ending our self-centric lives means coming alive to the needs of others. God-centric living serves and gives.