{"id":612,"date":"2021-07-19T10:31:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T10:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/thoughts\/?p=612"},"modified":"2021-07-19T10:31:41","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T10:31:41","slug":"why-do-we-serve-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/thoughts\/?p=612","title":{"rendered":"Why do we serve God?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This will be a Thought for the Week for EBA Churches some time in August – but you read it here first folks!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every Christian serves God. Whenever we love our neighbour and whenever we share our faith, it is God we are serving. Ministers and deacons and home group leaders and those who work with children and young people are all serving God in different ways. But at times serving God in the church and in the world can become difficult and demanding and even painful. Many of us have found this to be true particularly over the last very strange year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what motivates\nour service? What helps us to keep going?  To\ndo the simple menial tasks, behind the scenes and not just when we are in the\nspotlight? To do the jobs nobody wants to do. To go the extra mile, when nobody\nis looking? Why do we do it? What motives could we possibly have which will\nkeep us serving God when the going gets tough? As it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are six\npossible motives why pastors and teachers and leaders take on those\nresponsibilities and at the same time equally why any Christian might serve God\nin any way in the church and in the world. All of these are good biblical reasons\nfor serving. But I want to suggest to you that they are of increasing importance.\nThe later motives will be of the greatest value to us when serving God stops\nbeing glamorous and exciting and becomes impossibly difficult! Why do we serve\nGod?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of\nthe needs of the people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course the\nneeds of all the people we are serving are important; material and emotional\nand health needs as much as spiritual needs. But we do not serve people because\nwe have seen their needs and think that we could make much of a difference.\nThat is a weak motive because however hard we work, however much of ourselves we\ngive, we will never ever make a visible hole in that mountain of needs! Keeping\nour eyes on the needs, and looking all the time to see what difference we are\nmaking, is a recipe for discouragement and depression. We should never rely on \u201cseeing\nresults\u201d as our motivation for serving God. We can never measure our \u201csuccess\u201d\nor \u201cfailure\u201d in God\u2019s work. The Kingdom of God is the seed growing secretly,\nunderground and out of sight. We will not see the signs of growth until the\nharvest at the end of the age. Seeing the vast needs of this troubled world is\nnot by itself enough motivation for serving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because we\ncare about the people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is right\nand good that we care for the people God calls us to serve. The lesson we learn\nfrom the bad example of the Pharisees is that it is always better to serve out of\nlove than out of duty. But loving people is not enough. Because at time people\ncan be very hard to love! After decades as a minister I sometimes feel that\nSnoopy got it right. \u201cI love humanity, I just can\u2019t stand people.\u201d When we are\nserving God, the devil loves to attack that work by bringing division and disagreement\nand lack of trust between even the closest of friends. It is good to start off\nloving people. But that will not be enough! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\nGod loves the people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we are making\nprogress. Our task is not to love people in our own strength. Our task is to\ntake God\u2019s love to people! Our service for God must be based on the fact that the\nlove God has for people is infinitely greater than our love for those people.\nGod\u2019s love for them is greater than we can possibly imagine! When our patience\nwith them runs out, God\u2019s patience never runs out. When our love for the people\nwe are serving and caring for and pastoring and teaching runs out, God\u2019s love\nfor them will never run out! When we want to give up, God\u2019s love never gives up!\nSo we serve God and we serve people because God loves those people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\nChrist gives us an example<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the last\nSupper Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. We read in John 13:14-15 Jesus\nsaid, Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also\nshould wash one another’s feet.  I have\nset you an example that you should do as I have done for you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus came not to be served but to serve and he shows us what being a servant means. Not glamorous. Not exciting. Not pleasant. Being a servant is hard work; long hours with no reward. But we serve others because Christ has set us an example which we should follow in his steps. All Christians should follow that example, summed up in a famous prayer written by Richard of Chichester:
Lord give us the grace to serve you as you deserve,
To give and not to count the cost,
To toil and not to seek for rest,
To fight and not to heed the wounds,
To labour and not to ask for any reward,
Except that of knowing that we are doing your will.
That is what it means to serve God and to serve other people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\nGod has commanded us<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody should\ntake on any tasks serving in the church or in the world, and certainly not become\na pastor or a teacher or a leader, just because they want to. We should only be\ndoing the tasks God calls us and sends us to do. We serve because we know God\nhas called us to serve. But in any tasks we undertake the hard part is not starting\nthe work but keeping on going. When everything seems to be going wrong, and\nnothing seems to be working. When the going has got so tough that the tough have\nlong since packed their bags and gone home. When we aren\u2019t seeing any results\nand it seems that the whole world and even everybody in the church is against us.\nWhen we feel that even God has given up on us. When a time like that comes, being\nthere \u201cbecause God commanded me\u201d will not seem to be enough of a reason to\nstay! That darkest hour may come, when all the other motives why we should\nserve God count for absolutely nothing. So let me give you the most important\nreason why we serve, why some become pastors and teachers and leaders and why\nevery Christian serves God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You serve because\nGod loves you<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

God loves\nYOU! More than any other reason \u2013 this is the reason to cling on to. God loves\nyou! Never forget this glorious truth. God loves you so much that He gave His\nonly Son to die for your sins so that He could make you His child. God loves\nyou so much that He has come to live within you as the Holy Spirit. God loves\nyou \u2013 and nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate you from that love\nGod has for you. That is why we serve God. Because He loves us.  \u201cWe love because God first loved us\u201d<\/em> (1\nJohn 4:19) We love God and we love others because God loved us first. The love\nwhich we ourselves have received inspires and sustains us to love other people.\nWhy do we go out into the world as Ambassadors for Christ? As the apostle Paul writes\nin 2 Corinthians 5:14, \u201cChrist\u2019s love compels us\u201d <\/em>It is not our love for Christ that matters. It is the infinite\nlove Christ has shown for us which compels us to serve God! In the hardest of\ntimes it is only our own personal experience of just how much God loves us which\nwill be sufficient to keep any of us firm carrying on in serving God. God loves\nyou! May God give us each one of us the strength to carry on serving him today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let us learn how to serve, and in our lives enthrone Him;
Each other\u2019s needs to prefer, for it is Christ we\u2019re serving. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This will be a Thought for the Week for EBA Churches some time in August – but you read it here first folks! Every Christian…<\/span><\/p>\n

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