Some weeks ago a retired
couple moved to our town and when they learned I’d visited all the churches in
our area they wanted some recommendations. Similar to directing someone to a restaurant
I found out what they were looking for and then rattled off a menu of churches.
Last Sunday they re-visited my church and told me they had attended six churches
and while comparing our experiences the man said, “We’re trying to find a place
where we can serve.” My first reaction was one of human nature…match skill sets
with needs. However, Peter puts the believer’s service into a spiritual perspective,
“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully
administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone
speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone
serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things
God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for
ever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:10-11 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Do we really have to go to a church to serve the Lord? Of course, the vitality of the new life is in the fellowship of believers. So, like a finger needing to stay deft and vibrant must remain attached to its body, we must also attach to His body. But the mistaken idea is that service to the Lord is only at a church, or directed by a church. Service to the Lord certainly draws vitality from worshipping with the believers, fellowshipping and communing with them. But the steps of a man are from the Lord, not from a church. He leads them through churches, but not by churches. He leads a man’s steps by His Spirit.
----- There’s any number of good organizations which need volunteers. And some of the best of the Lord’s service opportunities are at the neighbor’s place. It’s amazing how much someone will open to new ideas and influences from the more proximate folks who lend an occasional helping hand. The work does not have to be holy and spiritual. But the more an effort is present and sincere, the more the conversations might go spiritual.
-----And I assure you, a dark cloud is quickly rising over this whole earth. Only the Lord will lift it by His presence for those who’ve persevered its evil flood and have recognized Him acceptingly at His return. All others will perish. And the Lord said the road leading to destruction is wide with the more following it than the narrow, less traveled road to eternal life. This means many people need influenced to the condition of more open eyes and ears through which seeds of the gospel can be sown. We can incite and influence people to pick a few stones out of their soil and fluff it up a bit by being genuinely kind, compassionate, caring, and helpful. The Holy Spirit knows what to do with whatever seed can be dropped in the process.
-----I am not retired. Most all of my time is spent serving my clients and my family and studying my Lord’s Word and His reality. But whether or not my clients and family know it, I always have a bit of a till blade ready for dropping into the soil whenever it seems proper. And watching spiritual growth amongst my two hundred service opportunities over the thirty years I’ve been self employed has been an inspiration to me as well.
-----We all who know the Lord are springs of living water. Although it may not seem that way to us, the genuinely thirsty can smell it. Always be sensitive to Mister Snifter. He tries not to be obvious, but he can’t help that subtle sniffing. The other day, a client I’ve been chumming for twenty years with spiritual tidbits expressed deep concerns about her ailing husband’s relationship with the Lord. I smiled at her and said, “You don’t throw all the corn through the knothole in one toss. I’ve been chucking it through your knothole a kernel at a time over all these years, and look at us now, sitting here and talking deep things in the Lord. Go home and always keep the next, right kernel ready to toss through every knothole you can inspire to open. Soon conversations about the Lord will start coming. Soon you‘ll be taking him to church.” Soon the Lord will be returning, and a few more people will be somewhat more ready just because we got up on our Lord directed feet and served a bit, a morsel, a kernel, or little tilling while we were doing our otherwise mundane stuff.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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