Five Invitations - Day 18

DAY 18 - Offer Your Service to God
1 Peter 2:4-5 

What’s your attitude toward serving others?

Moses says in Deuteronomy 10:12, 20, “Fear the Lord your God and serve him.”

This is absolutely critical to connecting with God by serving others. Serving others can only connect you more to God if you offer your service to God. In the New Testament, Paul puts it this way, “Serve as unto the Lord.” In other words, you approach service as something you're doing for Jesus himself.

Any work, any service, can be offered to God, so long as it’s not sin. Parenting, welding, teaching, washing dishes, marketing, fixing cars, accounting, working for better schools, and political office can all be ministry. You can do anything as if you were working directly for the Lord Jesus. Offering your service to God means you are reaching out to receive God's invitation. It elevates your service to worship, what Peter calls a “spiritual sacrifice.”

What’s your attitude toward serving others? It’s tempting sometimes to see service as distracting from the “truly spiritual” business of Bible reading and prayer. But if Scripture is right, then serving as unto the Lord is just as spiritual as Bible reading.

Here’s something else I’ve seen: service offered to God goes the distance. You can often endure more when serving gets hard if you’re serving Jesus. Study the lives of social reformers like Frederick Douglas or Martin Luther King, Jr. You’ll find incredible spiritual strength and a deep-rooted faith in God driving their public service. Such faith makes you more patient, tolerant, and understanding when people are difficult. Such faith raises your horizon line above temporary challenges. Such faith draws on a deeper source of strength.

REFLECT:
What’s your attitude toward serving others?
How do you prioritize serving others?
What would you need to change to serve others more?

PRAY:
Lord, today I offer my work and service to you. Let this be my spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to you. Amen.