Wednesday, June 23, 2010

A Serving Heart

The other day I was having my devotional, and I came across a this verse.

Ephesians 6:7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men,


Immediately I thought of the missionary trip I am leaving on tomorrow. (I am really exited!) I thought to myself if what I was doing was for men, or for God. Tough question, you'd think that the answer would be obvious, right? Well, In the lifestyle I, and many Christians kids, were raised, going on missions is what people love to see you do! You know, the old ladies hug you and say what a great kid you are, and your parents become proud of their missionary kid. All these things are great, but is that the motivation for my trip? This question kind of shook me up, you see, I had been asked to share the gospel, and take care of about 30 kids. Top be honest, I didn't want to. :( Whatever the reason, I didn't feel ready to do it. Then that verse came and haunted me. :P I saw that I was thinking selfishly about my situation, thus, I was not thinking about their eternal future, but about my comfort. (Talk about pleasing men. :P)

In any ministry that we are a part of we can be pleasure of men, and not of God. A real servant would not care if he/she handed out Bibles, or preached a sermon to 100,000 people. Because if your are pleasing God, then your heart is what matters, not what you do.Look at Jesus. I know that Jesus shared the sermon on the mount with the same attitude that he was crucified in. Jesus was constantly serving, and many times it was not glamorous. When you are a pleaser of men, you cannot serve God.

We see in the Bible how Saul, the king, ruled. He was a pleaser of men, instead of a pleaser of God. We see how Ananias and Sapphira were pleasers of men, and we know what happened to them. O_O See, if you have the attitude of pleasing God, then you are already serving God with your attitude. What did Jesus do for 29 years? Even though He was not performing miracles, he was still pleasing God with His attitude.

Serving God wholeheartedly is putting all your mind, soul, strength and heart into everything that you do, not just the things that we consider "Godly."

Philippians 2:14-15 Do all things without complaining or disputing, that you may
become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a
crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.


We should do "all things" as if we were doing it for God, and by doing that we are being lights to this dark world. So, sadly, if you do anything, even go to a missionary trip, and lack the correct motivation, you are not being a light. :( God is good! Imagine me going on this trip, but not having the serving heart! That would of been a mess.

I'll let you all know how the trip went, and put some pictures up for you all to see! :D

Maybe some of you would like to share your thoughts on this?

Maybe you would be brave enough to share an example?

2 comments:

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  2. This is such an important topic! It's vital to have the right heart when serving or you may just be pulling everything apart instead of building up God's kingdom. What you said about motivation is so true! A lot of times, we'll just find our worth in what people say about us. Usually, we don't even have to do anything for people to begin praising us. We need to learn not fall into listening to what people are saying about us and become complacent. It's very easy to do that, but it's not what God's called us to. :)

    I remember the time when my parents started serving in my church's Sunday school. I personally didn't really like Sunday School at all (mainly because I was shyer than the rest and the kids didn't include me so I thought Sunday school was the place where all the mean people got together :P ). I didn't really want to be serving with them; I wanted to be listening to my pastor. After a conversation with my parents, I submitted to them and decided to begin serving with them. I can tell you for a fact that although I was up there, I wasn't there with the right heart. I didn't do much because I didn't want to be there. Now, I need to say that since then, God has been working in my heart and showing me that it's there, by my parents, where He wants me to be serving Him. I can see that He placed me there to be a friend to a lot of the children who were like me when I was younger. I've seen many of them grow in a closer walk with God and have had the privilege of teaching some of them. I can honestly say now that serving in Sunday School is a joy for me and I look forward to it every week. I no longer regret being up there. I've made lots of new friends while serving there and it's been a blessing to serve alongside them. Being there has been one of the best things that's happened to me because over the course of these last 3 years, I've seen God work in my heart and in my attitude towards serving Him. I am grateful that He's placed me there and that I've been serving there so long. :)

    It's awesome that you have an opportunity to serve God in another country! I'm excited to see the pictures! :)

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