Devotions

I Choose to Serve

Jesus said, "It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant" - Matthew 20:26

We've been looking every week at snapshots of different choices we have that can change our lives forever. Here is a choice that will absolutely change your life. When you decide,

My life is not going to be about myself.

I'm going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I can't change the world, but I can change my own destiny.

I know what God wants. I know what God's looking for.

I'm going to be a servant.

Your Christian life will never make sense to you until you learn how to serve by rolling up your sleeves and jumping in. At our church we call it "shouldering weekly kingdom responsibilities."

Until you serve, your Christian life will always be an obligation. Godly disciplines will feel like burdens until you get off the bench and into the game. Spiritually speaking, you'll never get the wind in your sails until you commit to imitating Christ in regular, humble, faithful service. You'll only know the duty and never the delight of the Christian life until you serve God with your whole heart, whatever that specifically means for you. Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might." What's more, you'll never experience long-term growth in your Christian life until you serve in some kind of personal ministry.

We don't have to ask God if He wants us to serve, He has called every one of us into a lifetime of service: "It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." - Phil. 2:13. God wants to do something great with you so whatever He's calling you to do, do it with your whole heart. Others may never assign greatness to your life, but in serving Christ you will know you have lived a great life.

November 2006 by Dr. Bill Gillham
It's been some years ago now when I first heard Peter Lord preach his classic sermon, "Turkeys and Eagles." In it he describes an eaglet which is hatched from an eagle's egg placed in a clutch of turkey eggs. This baby eagle is taught by its turkey-parents and peers to scratch in the dirt, emit a screeching attempt at a gobble, and otherwise act like a turkey.

As he matures though, while scavenging the soil for his daily food, he looks up at the eagles soaring high above and his heart longs to be one of them. He dreams of what it must be to live above the circumstances rather than living under them: If only God had created me as an eagle instead of as a turkey.

This eagle longed to experience the very identity that God had created him with. But because he received daily feedback from peers that he was a turkey, because he believed that he was a turkey, he continued to scratch in the dirt, daydreaming of a better life. God says, “For as a person thinks [within himself], so he is.” 1What you believe about your identity will determine the way you live.

In wartime an agent—posing as a loyal citizen in order to gather information for his masters or commit acts of sabotage—is often smuggled into the country of his enemy. He is driven by two things: his identity and his patriotism for his homeland. Because he knows who he is and is passionate about his patriotism, he is highly motivated to resist being swayed from his purpose. His passion enables him to justify even violent acts which he would never commit in peacetime. What you believe about your identity will determine the way you live.

Had we asked Saul of Tarsus to describe his identity, we have a written record of how he would have responded. It was recorded by the person who knew him best—Paul: “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.” 2

Believing that this was his identity produced Saul’s behavior. He was proud to be from the “right” race, family lineage, geographic area; proud to fight for God against the Jesus-lovers and that he’d never, ever sinned in the way others had. Hey he never inhaled!

However, when Sinner Saul was crucified and reborn as a new spirit creation in Christ, God gave him a new identity: righteous saint (holy one).3 Believing this and that Jesus longs to express His life through the body of Christ, he began to act like Saint Paul. 4 What you believe about your identity will determine the way you live.

“God is Spirit,”5 and since He created you in His image6 your identity is spirit. You are a spirit critter who indwells an earthsuit, not a physical critter with a spirit. The real you is invisible inside a dying earthsuit. You are not a mammal; you temporarily inhabit a mammalian vessel.

God says the real you indwells an “earthly tent” (earthsuit). “For we know that if the earthly tent which is merely our house…”7 Your temporal earthsuit is not your identity, gang, your spirit/soul (personality) form your identity, and these are everlasting.

Since God gets to make the rules, your spirit identity is your true identity—now and forever. But the fact of your new identity in Christ will be manifested only one way: What you believe about your identity will determine the way you live.

Now as you marvel over this miraculous new identity that has been bestowed upon you by the unmerited favor of God, how are you motivated to live? As this “saint,” safely tucked away in heaven8, blessed with every spiritual blessing there9, glorying in the presence of God, enjoying an unprecedented intimate, love relationship with Him, how are you acting on Earth? Do you live like the eagle you are or like the “turkey” you are not? Are these incredible truths no more than rows of black ink on white paper to you?

If, on the other hand, you are appropriating your true identity, do you selfishly envelop yourself in this truth like a sailor whose ship has sunk might cling to his life jacket while indifferently watching his shipmates drown? Such a life is not Christ in you! Other “swimmers” inhabit your sea—some laboriously tread water without life jackets, others laboriously tread water with jackets, but don’t know how to inflate them. Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden light, but these Christians are sinking.

As God provides the opportunity, are you a living sacrifice10 through whom Christ can share with those without life jackets the miracle of how He will change their identity? In addition, many of your Christian friends are clueless about their identity. Do you share the words or materials which will equip them to cast their burden on the Lord11? What is your passion? Is Jesus serving others through you beginning with your family? What you believe about your identity will determine the way you live.

Your heart, what you are passionate about, is the dynamic that motivates you. All who are born again have a desire, a longing, to please Christ by their actions. Those who are of Christ have been given a Christ-like heart12. Ask God to reveal to you the transplanted heart He has given you13. An inner yearning to obey Christ is His sonogram of your heart, your proof. If you have such passion then step out on faith and begin acting like Christ is living through you.

You’re an eagle, not a turkey. What you believe about your identity will determine the way you live.

One of the reasons you exist is to glorify God on Earth This means living to enhance His reputation among those around you, especially at home. You can accomplish this only by allowing Christ to do it through you, by faith. You are to act like a marvelously, godly, new person, an extremity of Christ’s body through whom He expresses His life. To do otherwise is to deny your identity.

1 Prov. 23:7

2 Phil. 3:5-6

3 1 Cor. 1:30

4 Romans 15:18

5 Jn. 4:24

6 Gen.1:27

7 2 Cor. 5:1-2

8 Eph. 2:6

9 Eph. 1:3

10 ibid

11 Ps.55:22

12 Heb. 10:16

13 Ezek. 36:26-27

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READ: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. —2 Corinthians 12:9

About this cover
If there is anything that we love to hate more than the arrogance of others, it would have to be an awareness of our own weakness. We detest it so much that we invent ways to cover our personal inadequacy.

Even the apostle Paul needed to be reminded of his own frailty. He was jabbed time and again by a "thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7). He didn't tell us what the thorn was, but author J. Oswald Sanders reminds us that "it hurt, humiliated, and restricted Paul." Three times he pleaded with the Lord to take it away, but his request was not granted. Instead, he used his thorn to tap into God's all-sufficient grace. The Lord promised, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (v.9).

Courageously, Paul began to "own" his weakness and put the Lord's grace to the test, a pathway that Sanders calls "a gradual educative process" in the apostle's life. Sanders notes that eventually Paul no longer regarded his thorn as a "limiting handicap" but as a "heavenly advantage." And his advantage was this: When he was weak in himself, he was strong in the Lord.

As we accept our weaknesses, in Christ we can be strong weak people.
—Joanie Yoder

May the Word of God dwell richly
In my heart from hour to hour,
So that all may see I triumph
Only through His power. —Wilkinson

God's strength is seen best in our weakness.

A Lesson In Caring About One Another

C- Compassion, Considerate, Covenant
A- Awesome, Aspiring, Angels
R- Respect, Remember, Responsible
I- Independence, Integrity, Inspiration
N- Neighbor, New, Noble
G- Generous, Grateful, Grace

Faith, Hope, Love
Serenity and Peace
Family, Friends,

Patience
Love
Endurance
Assurance
Sufferings
Everlasting Life