The Paradox of Performance and Love
In an age obsessed with visibility, even virtue risks becoming performance art. We have learned to curate generosity for applause and compassion for social proof. Yet beneath this glittering surface, a subtle poverty grows: we serve to be seen, not to see. The paradox is that the more we attempt to prove love, the less we embody it. Service without fellowship becomes performance; fellowship without service becomes sentiment. Both are sterile if they do not flow from communion with Christ; the One who knelt, cleansed, rose, and then communed.
When Choice Met Healing
Have you ever wondered why you choose?
Logically speaking, choice itself cannot be argued outside the reality of God. A purely naturalistic worldview must surrender to the fact that consciousness is not possible if evolution is true in a purely mechanistic sense. Chemicals and energy are reactive, not reflective; they cannot choose to be otherwise or question their existence.
So, if choice is God-ordained, as seen in Deuteronomy 30:19, do we choose to honour God for giving us choice, or do we choose to use choice to honour ourselves?
Years ago, someone I was dating stole R80 000 from me; all I had. Devastated, I spiralled into disbelief that I had allowed such a person into my life. Around that time, my pastor, André Olivier of Rivers Church, made a statement from the pulpit: “If you want love, give love.”
Angry and sceptical, I began volunteering at our church’s outreach arm, the Rivers Foundation. I made food for disadvantaged children and visited their schools to play with them. Though still hurting, something unexpected happened. My motive to test a principle I doubted became the salve I needed. I found joy not in proving my own strength, but in discovering that God had given me the grace to keep going.
Where I began with a fractured motive, God taught me a rhythm: kneel, cleanse, rise, commune. I wasn’t serving to heal myself, I was learning to love Jesus by loving His people.
The Caution of Narcissism in Service
Modern psychology affirms what Scripture implies: motives matter more than motion. Amy Brunell and her colleagues found that narcissism correlates strongly with volunteering for self-enhancing reasons rather than altruistic ones. Those who feel entitled often volunteer to build networks or polish reputations, not to serve others.¹ By contrast, individuals with high self-esteem, the stable self anchored in meaning, serve from genuine humanitarian concern.
Grapsas et al. describe narcissism as “a system of psychological processes aimed at fulfilling individuals’ fundamental motive for social status.”² Service, when detached from communion, can thus become a covert pursuit of self-validation; a performance of goodness rather than a participation in grace.
Theologically, this is the ancient sin of self-exaltation in new clothes. Pride baptised as charity. Jesus subverts this completely: He kneels before His disciples, even Judas, and washes their feet. In doing so, He redefines power as surrender and love as action without self-gain.
Kneel, Cleanse, Rise, Commune
John 13 records that after washing their feet, Jesus “took His garments, and sat down again.” The detail is not incidental. It marks a divine rhythm, a time to kneel, a time to cleanse, a time to rise, and a time to commune.
Kneel – The descent of God into humility. To kneel is to re-enter the dust from which we came and acknowledge that leadership in the Kingdom begins beneath the feet of others.
Cleanse – The removal of worldly dust, not to humiliate but to restore. The washing of feet was an act of love that prepared others for fellowship.
Rise – After service, Christ re-clothed Himself; dignity restored through humility. The one who kneels in love always rises in authority.
Commune – Jesus sat with those He knew would fail Him, to Judas, Peter, all of them. Fellowship with imperfection is the apex of divine grace.
Where performance seeks control, communion seeks connection. Where sentiment seeks comfort, service seeks transformation. Both converge in the towel and basin of Christ.
Practical Application: How to Serve Without Performing
Check the Temperature of Your Water. As Spurgeon warned, zeal can scald as easily as coldness can numb. Serve others not to prove passion, but to extend presence.
Ask Why You Serve. Before every act of giving, ask: Would I still do this if no one ever knew? If the answer is yes, your service has already become worship.
Communion Over Compensation. Do not serve to fix people; serve to fellowship with them. Jesus didn’t wash feet to change the disciples’ behaviour, but to demonstrate the nature of divine love that changes hearts.
Through such habits, service ceases to be performance and becomes participation, a re-enactment of the Incarnation itself.
The Spiritual Insight
The Holy Spirit taught me that perspective matters. We can become so caught up in our own world that we assume we are the most wounded. Yet when we step into another’s story, we begin to see the universal ache: everyone simply wants to be loved for who God made them to be, not for the roles this fractured world assigns. True service, therefore, is not charity but communion, the act of restoring divine perspective through human touch.
Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Teach me again to kneel without fear, to cleanse without pride, to rise without superiority, and to commune without condition.
Guard my heart from the vanity of performance and the sentimentality of comfort.
Make my service an echo of Your humility, and my fellowship a foretaste of Your eternal table.
In Your Powerful, Holy, Immeasurably Beautiful Name Messiah King Jesus,
Amen.
Track To Listen To
Footnotes
1) Amy R. Brunell, Laraine Tumblin, and Melissa T. Buelow, “Narcissism and the Motivation to Engage in Volunteerism,” Current Psychology 33 (2014): 373–374.
2) S. Grapsas, E. Brummelman, M. D. Back, and J. J. A. Denissen, “The ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 15, no. 1 (2020): 165.
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