The Discovery: Exploring God’s Call On Your Life Näide

“The Discipline: Does it matter how I serve?”

In religious circles, we talk a lot about letting God work through us, and He does. (Remember John 15:5-8.) We talk about waiting on the Lord, and we should. We talk about spiritual growth being a process, and it is. However, we must be very careful not to use these ideas as excuses to become passive, lazy, or complacent about our own spiritual condition or our usefulness within the body.

While it is certainly true that Christ works through us to accomplish the will of God, obedience to Him does require effort on our part. It is not always easy to follow Him, stay motivated to grow, or to continually press for the level of excellence in service that He deserves. Yet, we must do these things or the body of Christ will atrophy.

We are called to do more than a good job for Jesus, we are called to conduct ourselves like ambassadors, performing our daily tasks just as He would if they had been assigned to Him. When we do, we demonstrate our gratitude to God for what He has done for us. This should raise the level of excellence in our work.

As you begin your assignment, guard against the tendency to simply do a better job than the next person or last person. Give it your all! Not for yourself, but for God. You may be speaking, cleaning carpet, stacking chairs, running a sound board, leading worship, painting, updating a web site or thousands of other things. Complete each task in such a way that others would know, without question, that you belong to Jesus. Let the love of God compel you, bringing Him glory in what you do. Just as His love is excellent, strive for excellence in every area of your life.

Respond to the following in your journal:

What motivates you to serve? Is that reflected in the way you serve?

What did you learn through Bible study today?

How were you encouraged? How were you challenged?