Free to Serve or Service by guilt?
I have met many people who refuse to return to their church because they feel inadequate, or they fear being put on the spot; on the spot because they were unable to meet the service requirements placed on them by their church. Many churches preach service to God far beyond any requirements set by God. As a result, many believers have decided that they are not capable of service and even not saved. This practice of constantly telling the congregation that their duty is to serve the Lord has gone too far. To far because we are not called to serve but to be of service to God.
Even the great commission has been miss-represented and turned into a mechanism for guilt. You see, the literal translation of the great commission is not what we have been told, “go ye into all the world.” It should read, “as you are going, make disciples of all nations.” This means that we are a service to God, the former means we serve the Lord. Something He never wanted or intended.
In John 20:28 “Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord My
God.” Oswald Chambers in one of his lectures given at an English Bible College and in YMCA huts in Egypt had this to say about that passage:
“Give Me to drink.” How many of us are set upon Jesus Christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying Him? We should be pouring out now, spending to the last limit, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me”–that means a life of unsullied, uncompromising, and unbridled devotion to the Lord Jesus, a satisfaction to Him wherever He places us.
Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him. It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battling. Are we being more devoted to service then to Jesus Christ?”
Never feel guilty because you do not measure up to denominational/non-denominational expectations. When you help someone without planning when you give because of your compassion, when you pray without effort or request, when you simply talk with God like you would yourself and when you see others in need and help them meet that need at your own expense, you are a service to Him. There is never failure with God, only men and their ideas of Him fail. They use every conceivable method to convince people of their shortfalls in meeting God’s expectations. By doing this, they rob you of your joyful fellowship with God just to satisfy egos.
There are two types of service that I’m addressing here:
Service One to Another
This type of service is what we do to strengthen each other and to teach. This is where the gifts of the Holy Spirit come in. “For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. Eph. 4:12” This has truly little to do with serving God, and we have taken our duties to one another as a sign that we are righteous. I believe that entire congregations, denominations, and non-denominations as well have been built–on a service that is for each other, calling it Christian work and serving God. These are our family traits, things that distinguish us as different from the rest of mankind, because it is done through love and none of through our own ambitions or desires. Yes, these things are a Christian work. In other words, they are a service to one another. Jesus gave us many examples of this service in taking care of his followers and those who came to hear. However, this was not serving God, He served God by being a satisfaction to Him, through obedience and death.
Being a Service for God
So, what exactly is a service to God or being a satisfaction to Him? Paul tells us what this is in his second epistle to the
Corinthians. In chapter three he states in vs. 1-9:
“ 1 Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you? 2 Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known, and read of all men; 3 being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ,
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of
flesh. 4 And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: 5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; Comparing the old covenant with the new 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.7 But if the ministration of death, written, and engraven on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look stedfastly upon the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which glory was passing away: 8 how shall not rather the ministration of the spirit be with glory? 9 For if the ministration of condemnation hath glory, much rather doth the ministration of righteousness exceeds in glory.” (ASV)
A service to God and a satisfaction to Him does not mean doing something for Him. It means obeying him out of love for Him, not matter the cost because it is for His glory and not ours. When accept God on His terms as Paul and others did, we no longer seek to do, do, do; no, we become doers of the Word because we are a satisfaction to Him.
God bless all of you who are a satisfaction to Him in being a service of His.
Copyright© 10 January 1997
Mike Kovach
The Christian Underground Journal
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