God, I’m Thankful That I Can Serve You

Isn’t this an oxymoron?

An oxymoron is simply where a statement contains two seemingly contradictory points.

Normally when we tell people “thank you,” it’s more along the lines of “thank you for your service,” or, “thank you for serving me.”

Why should we be thankful for serving someone else?

We were created to serve God.

Sin isn’t merely where you break some sort of law or arbitrary rule in the Bible. It’s where you “miss the mark” and be who you weren’t created to be and do what you weren’t created to do. We were created a certain way and were created to do certain things, “for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” Ephesians 2:10. This is problematic, because it means we failed the purpose of our existence.

Normally, if a chair breaks and fails to do its job, it’s thrown out and a new one is bought. For God, this would be nothing for him to do with us, because he can just say “poof” and have a whole new world and new people. Instead, God decides to let us repent and he forgives us, starts to change us to be more like who we were created to be, and gives us new purpose.

Serving God is more for our sake than it is for His.

What are some ways that we serve that we should be thankful for?

Volunteering in the Local Church

Out of all the things I devote my time to, the things that I do here at the church is the most rewarding. God has blessed me with the opportunity to work in the children’s ministry, youth ministry, and a little bit with the worship team. The amount of time I get to devote to this church is the most rewarding thing for me in my life.

There are so many needs in this church that we get to meet. The pastors can’t do it all, and they shouldn’t have to. We all have things that we’re gifted in, often called spiritual gifts, that we can use to help fulfill the church’s mission. Our mission statement here is to “Make growing followers of Christ.” We get to help the complete this mission.

If you’re not volunteering at the church, you’re cutting yourself off from a huge portion of your potential as a follower of Christ. We are blessed when we give. It’s not like we’re cup that’s being poured out. When we serve, we do what we were created to do.

John said in his first letter (1 John) that he writes his letters so that his joy may be complete (1 John 1:4). His joy is made complete when he uses his gifts for the benefit of the church. This also means that his joy cannot be complete if he doesn’t use his gifts for the benefit of the church.

John’s example shows us how our attitude should be toward serving the church. Our joy is made complete when we serve the church. When we do things for the body of Christ, we are finally being able to do the thing we were created to do. God created us to do good works. He created us to serve others. At one point, we were broken and unable to fulfill our purpose, but God renewed us and gave us new life. He regenerated us and sanctified us, so now we can serve him with all of our strength. This is something we GET to do. Volunteering in the church is God’s GIFT to us.

Evangelism

We’ve been reconciled to Christ by the work of Christ. We were once dead in our sin and Christ made us alive again, raised us up, and seated us with him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:1-6). That gift has been given to us. This is just the first part of this great gift that God has given us that is called the Gospel. There’s a second part that we can’t forget about.

2 Corinthians 5:17–20 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

God has given us this ministry. It’s not a burden that we have. It’s a gift. We GET to be the vessel that God uses to bring people to salvation. We GET to be the mailman carrying the message of the Gospel to those who are lost. God is trying to reconcile the world to himself and he’s choosing to use us to let people know about that.

Let us then ascribe the whole work of grace to the pleasure of God’s will. God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us He makes us worthy.

Thomas Watson

Closure

Service is one of God’s many gifts to us. It’s what we were created to do, not something that we merely have to do. The difference between someone who lives with joy and someone who is depressed is often that the joyful live with purpose. What better purpose to have than the very thing you were created to do? I didn’t write this devotion because I thought many of you didn’t serve. I wrote it because I figured that this is a good reminder to have. It can become easy to think of our service here to be a burden. However, it’s important to remember that our service is more for us than it is for God. God has everything and needs nothing. We’re the ones who fall short, so what does he have to gain from us? God fixed our broken lives and renewed our ability to serve him, so now we can fulfill the purpose for which we were created. When you serve, always keep the thought in the back of you mind that this is God’s gift to you, not your gift to God.