Serving God Is Serious Business

Who will you serve? It's time to choose.

Joshua 24:14-15  "So fear the LORD and serve Him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD alone.  But if you refuse to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD."

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We all like choices, just about nobody likes to be forced to do something, it helps us to be content if we are given some options to choose from. God gives his people the right to choose, we are never pushed into anything we don't want to do, sometimes we make a conscious decision for him and sometimes it is a choice made out of neglect, the result of not making a conscious decision.

God lets us decide who we will serve, will we serve him or will we live for ourselves? We look at the people of the Bible and see the big picture of their lives and it can be difficult to realize that following God was a daily decision, they had to choose to live for God moment by moment. Just like us, they had plenty of other options, there were plenty of gods to choose from.

Beware of neglect, we need to realize that if we do not make a conscious decision to serve God then we will probably realize someday that we are serving ourselves. That's because our old sin nature will naturally pull us away from God and what his will is for our lives.

Serving God can be an inconvenience, it can be costly and lonely but serving God is a requirement for those that want to please God. Serving God will require you to use your time and talents for him and yes it will require you to pull out your wallet and dig around and use your money for his work.

Malachi 3:17-18 “They will be my people,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “On the day when I act in judgment, they will be my own special treasure. I will spare them as a father spares an obedient child. Then you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

What an awesome decision that we have to make, and with great consequences, God says that there is a close relationship between serving him and being righteous. God is pleased with his people when they are obedient, he calls them his "special treasure," helping your neighbor, taking care of the sick, going on a mission trip, are just a few ways to please God, there are so many needs around us that we can meet.

"For Christians, service is not something to be tacked onto our schedules if we can spare the time. It is the heart of the Christian life. Jesus came 'to serve' and 'to give'—and those two verbs should define your life on earth, too." - Rick Warren

I cannot serve two masters, as it says in Matthew 6:24, I have to make a conscious decision to serve the Lord with my time, talents and treasure. I need to be about my Father's business.

Related articles

• Be A Servant (devotionsfordisciples.com)
• Cross Bearing (getmorestrength.org)
• Christ + Nothing = Everything (diggingtheword.blogspot.com)