All You Need is Agape: Ch. VI - Service

Jesus' life can be summed up as Service.
Service is the same as charity only the word "service" has a specific connotation to it: a will to lower yourself to others do what is best for them. Charity can sometimes be a pompous act: many people do nice things merely as an excuse to pat themselves on the back afterwards.
Now think about this: Jesus was God Himself; he lowered Himself by becoming a human; even then, He lowered Himself by performing works on the Sabbath, washing people's feet, and dieing for our sins.
These actions show the unmistakable will of God to perform charitable acts to His children, even though He was God!
Should it not be the children who should die for Him?

The Passion best represents this concept.
As I have written about before, Mankind is doomed to death and damnation due to our Fallen nature, educated to us by the Law.
But God loves us, and gives us a chance to avoid death of the spirit by sending His only Son to die as a substitute for our justified punishment by the Law.
We didn't do a thing to deserve this awesome act of selfless love, nor will we ever be able to. Remember how impossible it is for anyone to keep the Law 100%.
Jesus subjected Himself to torture and one of the worst forms of execution ever imagined by mankind as a pure act of charity to the very species that did this to Him!

That is love for you.
Step aside, Beetles!

Thus brings into mind something very important about Charity/Service/Agape: it is largely undeserved.
There was no reason for God to make Himself a servant of his rebellious children, but He did it anyway.
We are to follow in that model, so in fact, Charity/Service/Agape isn't really genuine unless it's undeserved.
Hence, liking somebody is certainly not a prerequisite for being a loving Christian (Lewis 110).

Jesus Himself says this on the sermon of the Mount: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...for if you love those who love you, what reward to you have?" (Matthew 5: 44, 46).
There is a reward to loving those who don't deserve it: you knock yourself off of your high horse and put yourself below an undeserving person by serving them.
The very act of agape is an act of humility. Humility washes away any thought you have of being better than others, and hence you wind up feeling a sense of fraternity with the person you are subjecting yourself to.
This fraternity is still not "liking" the other person, nor approving of their sins; it means to see them as flawed as you are. This is basically where the Biblical concept of equality comes from: nobody is better than anybody else.

If you merely walk around like Ned Flanders behaving as if you "like" everyone without it being genuine, you are actually cheating yourself of the joy that is to know that you are nothing special.
Sounds strange. Try it out, and see if you know what I'm talking about.
Being better than others requires heavy baggage, it feels good to let it go.
I'll talk more about this, in a personal way, later on.

But for the time being, allow me to say: this is all quite a relief!
All of those relentless calls for us to be loving in the New Testament is not a call to be a Hippie or a "girly-man".
One can still be quite stoic or even emotionally cold and still be "loving" or "charitable" or "agapeish"...to coin a new term.