In His Service

Eph. 4:¹⁶ “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

Yesterday, we learnt that we can show gratitude to God by singing from our hearts and by telling others the good news. The third way we can show gratitude to God is to thank God by Serving Him With The Abilities He Has Given Us. If in a marriage, one person is quick to profess his or her love but never serves the needs of the other person, after a while, he or she can say, ‘I love you’ ten times but it will mean nothing even if he or she says it in the deepest or sweetest voice. After a while, words become cheap if your actions do not back them up. You cannot just say you love; love is an action, not just a word. Heb.12:^28b “…Let us please God by serving him with thankful hearts . . .” (LB, emphasis added). You are like, “How do I serve God? God is in heaven; He has angels, billions of them. He does not need anything from me. How then can God say that I should serve Him with a thankful heart when he has His angels?

The answer is, we serve God by serving people. Take the church setting for example; there are always people serving God by serving you. When you are seated in church, people are taking care of your children in the children’s church. They are serving God by serving you. There are vigils every day of the week, people praying for you, they are serving God by serving you. As you drive into church, come rain or sun, the traffic people are there ensuring that you get in with minimum disturbance. You cannot just be on the receiving end of everything that everyone is serving, and you are not serving anyone. How are you serving? “…Let us please God by serving him with thankful hearts …”. We should not just say ‘thank you’, we should show it by serving other people.

God wants you to link hands and serve His children. Some people struggle with being the one to sweep the floors because they are big in their own eyes. Let me remind you that you are not serving man; you are serving God. There are people serving you by washing the toilets and these people have jobs, families, they are big men and women in their own rights. But they give everything up for God. What are you doing? Every time you serve God’s people, every time you serve people even if it is volunteering in a charity. Every time you serve people, particularly God’s people, you are helping in building God’s Kingdom.

There are people that need to be discipled by you, they need to grow up in the things of God. Every time you disciple them, you are helping to build God’s Kingdom. At the end of his career Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney world said to Pastor Rick Warren, “While I was building the magic kingdom, you were building the real Kingdom.” Disney World is arguably the biggest industry. Yet at the end of his career, the CEO makes such a remark. What if he had been volunteering at Saddleback church since he lived in southern California where the church is?

Prayer:  Holy Spirit, please help me give priority to what is priority. Help me focus on serving God and God’s people daily, in Jesus Name. Amen!