What is The Will of God for My Life?

October 6th, 2013

God Wants Us to Serve Him

Last week we looked at the fact that God wants us to Love Him. Love ALWAYS comes first. Service from any other place other than love has self-serving motives. Our love for God will produce a desire to Serve God. Lets look at some verses that speak of this service to God and see what we can glean.

C ATALYST

Romans 12:11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Serving should never be done way. Keeping our spiritual fervor is loving the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Considering this, our service to Him should be with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Deuteronomy 13:4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. I think it is interesting that many times in scripture we see obedience to the Lord is synonymous with serving the Lord. We do not keep His commandments to reach some sort of salvation experience, or gain kudos with God.. We keep his commandments out of reverence for Him, love for Him, and knowing that keeping them is for our own good (Deut.10:13) not Gods. Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. We are free. In this verse, we see the antithesis of indulging in sinful acts to be serving one another in love. Why? When we serve one another, the needs of others take precedence over our own. We focus on others and not our self. The sinful nature is one that is engulfed in its own lusts. When we feed our own lusts and desires, it is impossible to serve others for the needs of others are of no consequence. In sincere service to one another, we show the world our devotion to Christ and tame the flesh. 1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. Look at the verbs in this verse: 1) use, 2) received, 3) serve, 4) administer. God does not give us gifts to be idle. He gives us gifts to use. These gifts are not drummed up by our own abilities, they are given to us by God therefore, we have no room to boast. The giver of the gift is God; we are to use these gifts not for personal gain but to serve others. When we do uses these gifts given by God to serve one another, we are in essence and in every sense of the word, administering Gods grace to the world. Another way of putting is that God graciously gives gifts to man to further pour out His grace on men. God didnt have to do it that way, but He uses men as a vehicle to pour out His grace on men. When we use our gift of mercy; we are pouring out the grace of God.. When we exercise our give of prophecy, we are pouring out the grace of God. When we use the gift of administration; of teaching; of helps, we are pouring out the grace of God in its various forms. SO Serving is a vehicle that God uses to pour out is grace to mankind. God wants us to serve.

1 Samuel 12:24 But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. This verse tells us that our service should not be sporadic but consistent. Gods love for us is not sporadic; it is consistent. A daily inventory of Gods grace, mercy, and provision in our life will be more than enough to prompt a faithful service to Him. Not because we MUST but because it is our desire to serve Him out of gratitude. Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. I would have to say that one could put just about anything in that blank and it would have the same result. You cannot serve both God and ______________. I heard it once said that identify where ones time, effort, and resources are and there you will find their heart.

C ATALYST

John 12:26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. Look at this verse.. This verse is pointing out that when we serve Christ, we follow Christ. It also goes to reason that anyone who claims to serve Christ will be where Christ is. Our feet take us many places. Is Christ where our feet are taking us or are we following a different master? One way of knowing whether or not we are serving God and thereby obeying the will of God for our life is an examination of where our feet take us and do we find Christ in those places? God will honor those whose feet are following Christ. God honors us in many ways: The health of us and our family, The peace that we have in our life, Fruit of ministry, Favor with God and man, I tell this one story of how my wife laid hands on our washer and dryer when it was messing up and it not only lasted until we could get a new one, but we gave it away to a newlywed couple and they used it for years, then they gave it away to an elderly lady who used it and may still be! God honored us in making the things we have last.. In summary, God wants us to Love Him and out of this love, we serve Him. Not with part of our life but with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. In service to God we serve people pouring out His grace as we serve. In serving God, we find ourselves following Christ and as we are found with Him and in HIM, God will honor us.