Advice For The Christian Girl

True Service To God

True Service to God

We all have received a spiritual gift. The apostle speaks about the gifts of the Spirit and who God has called us to be.

But something I love is that above all this, above the spiritual gifts we love. We should have a heart filled with love. A heart that desires the benefit of others.

Why do we need love? Why do we need the fruit?

As disciples of Christ, we were given spiritual gifts by the Holy Spirit. To cast out demons, to preach the gospel, to teach, to help the poor and the widows, to prophecy, to speak words of knowledge, to give wisdom.

The power of the Holy Spirit revealed in our lives should be paired with the fruit of the Spirit.

Jesus said that they will know we are His disciples by our love for another (John 13:35). The Bible says that when we abide in God, God abides in us. This means love must abide in us (John 13:35).

When we have love, everything flows from love. Our motivations, our inspirations, and our encouragement all flow from love. Without love, our service flows from another source other than God.

For since God is love (1 John 4:10) if our source isn't love or it is automatically something demonic. It's coming from a heart filled with envy, competition, hurt, bitterness, pride, etc. Love has none of those. Love doesn't have pride or envy. Love doesn't have negative competition or try to ruin others.

When our service is filled with these emotions and these fruits then our service isn't to God but to our flesh and even to the kingdom of darkness. True service to God comes from a place of love.

If you want to be a true servant of God, you need love. Someone can be more popular than you but to God, you're more impactful because everything you did came from love. God recognises your service as genuine and your reward will be found in heaven. Our reward will come in heaven when God speaks about how we were good and faithful servants.

The truth is when we do things with wrong motives like to be seen, praised, or please others we won't receive any rewards from God. This is what Jesus was trying to express.

Matthew 6:5-6
NKJV

The Model Prayer
5
 

“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray to stand in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

The reward the Pharisees get is what their motives were. If your motive is fame, that's your reward. If it was the applause of man. That's your reward. If your motive is for people to be touched and saved then that's how God will reward you.

An engineer boss won't pay a surgeon. Why? Because the surgeon isn't working for him but for a hospital. He'll only pay those who work for him which are the engineers. He won't pay engineers working for another company but his own. Why? Because they are working for him and his company. They are benefiting his brand, his agenda, and his company.

God wants us to serve His agenda, His will, and His kingdom.

God rewards and blesses those who serve Him and work for His will.

To be a good and faithful servant is to be a servant who consistently prays for love. For love to develop in you, you need to abide in God. The more you grow closer to God, in prayer, in relationships, in reading the Bible, etc you'll begin to become like God, which is love. The more you'll begin to think, behave, and speak on love.

Love is what makes Jesus different. He came and sacrificed His life out of love. God the Father sent His son out of love (John 3:16). God sent the Holy Spirit out of love so we won't be alone.

Everything God does thinks and says comes from a place of strong love and to be His representatives here on this earth, we need to be fueled with that love.

Spiritual gifts are gifts, they are given for free and out of love. We don't earn them but receive them. Now, we can be operating in spiritual gifts without love. You can prophesy without love, pray without love, speak in tongues without love, etc

But to God that isn't true service. True service is one coming from intimacy. Coming from your loving relationship with God. Flowing from that desire to know God deeper, to know who He is, to speak to Him, to know more about Him. If it doesn't flow from that place then it isn't a true service to God.

You may wonder what is the deep impact of love that it indicates whether a service is genuine or not.

When you are filled with love, you don't have envy. You aren't in competition with anyone or trying to pull someone else down. You aren't there negatively thinking about others. When you have love, you don't have pride. You're filled with humility and recognise the grace to serve and the value of others. When you love you'll hope, you don't give up, you'll keep evangelizing, keep praying for others, and use your gifts. You'll keep sharing words of encouragement.

The love for God keeps us growing in intimacy with Him and the love for others helps us to keep loving others with a heart flowing from the love we have for God. To love God is to love everything He loves and God loves us. He loves you, He loves the murders, the thieves, etc. He doesn't love their sin but loves them cause He created them. He wants them to be saved. He wants them to receive Him and serve Him. He wants them to be in heaven with Him. God wants to be in relationship with them.

If you're in a relationship with someone, eventually you'll start loving what that other person loves because you see how happy it makes them, you see the joy, the sparkle in their eyes, their smile and immediately you start accepting what they love because you recognise how happy to makes them. Let's say if it's reading, even if you don't like reading, the deepness of your love for that person will push you to read a book or even take them to the library just to see them smile.

With our hearts filled with love for God, we begin to love His people. We know when souls are saved, angels celebrate and God is happy (Luke 15:10), God is so very happy. Because we love God, we desire to please Him so we will go out of our way to serve others because we can feel His love. We can feel it because we have the Holy Spirit, you'll experience so much joy in your spirit because we were created to serve God.

Love doesn't encourage sin but desires all to repent, desires for people to see and understand the truth. We don't desire the destruction of others but for others to repent, change their ways and choose Jesus. We desire their salvation, not destruction. We tell them to repent out of love for them not out of judgment.

When we are filled with love, we serve others with so much purity. There is no judgment, no bitterness but all flows from a place of seeking the best for others.

Jesus helped those rejected by society, those often seen as unworthy. He visited those that people wouldn't because Jesus didn't just see the exterior but filled with love, He would go to touch the hearts of those His Father wanted to touch.

That's why today I want you to ask God to fill you with love. This is my daily prayer every day because I know I have a flesh. This flesh can be tempted to envy, to judge but I don't want to be known as a woman of God if I can't bear the fruit of the Spirit which is love. If love isn't the source of all I do then all I do is in vain.

Service coming from the wrong motives dishonour God even if it's something good. Even if you help the poor and they eat, if it isn't coming from a place of love, there isn't a recompense for you and that isn't true service to God. Genuine service is filled with love.

Let's love.

-etty