Serving God

The Lord has put on my heart the challenge to encourage our church body to engage in the service of the Lord. I have this vision that you and I will stand before the Lord one day in eternity, and I want you to experience the joy of recognized service which according to the Scriptures is "gold, silver and precious stones." The Bible says this kind of ministry will be rewarded.

But in actuality, I find that many people respond to this kind of message with excuses. There were people in the Bible that had plenty of excuses. They could have avoided being involved in ministry, because as Rick Warren said in his book The Purpose Driven Life: "Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Sampson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric (to say the least), Peter was impulsive and hot tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had many failed marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health and Timothy was timid." That is quite a variety of misfits but God used each one of them in his service. Obviously, the point is that he will use you too if you stop making excuses. "For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10)