Service

by L.A. Hickling, Derby | Category: Service | Aug 1968

Paul had a zeal for service, but a misguided one until, at his experience on the Damascus road, he found freedom in Christ. It was a freedom that so drew his heart to the Lord Jesus that he felt the compulsion of love to serve Him. Like the Hebrew servant of Deuteronomy 15 he became a bond man for ever, yielding himself in loving service to his Master. We, too, have known redemption from bondage. We are bought with a price, and the realization of it should compel us to give ourselves in service which is a response of love to our Lord.

Love that transcends our highest powers,

Demands our heart, our life, our all.

Such a response will beget in us love also to those whom we serve and without love our service is nothing.

David instructed his son (1 Chronicles 28.9) that service requires a perfect heart and a willing mind, and Paul wrote to Timothy of the need of a good conscience. These things we must bring to the Lord's service; a pure and willing heart, concerned only to please the Lord, and a good conscience, unblemished by unconfessed sin. So there must be continual waiting upon God in prayer and confession to see to it that this is the condition of our hearts.

Paul was a man of natural ability and learning but it was not in these things that he had power in his service, for it is "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts". When he went to Corinth it was not the persuasive words of wisdom that reached the men in that needy city it was the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. The work of God is done by the movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and if we are going to have a part in it we shall need to be filled with the Spirit. The apostle in the intensity of his yearning bowed his knees as he prayed, "That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man" (Ephesians 3.16). Our great need in service today, whether we go with the gospel message to sinners or with the truth to believers, is that we be so filled with the Spirit that the power in our service may be His power.

Paul's service for the Lord was a full-time service. It permeated his whole life. He desired that "Christ shall be magnified in my body". "For to me to live" he wrote, "is Christ" (Philippians 1.20,21). His aim in everything that he did was to magnify the Lord. And so must this be our aim as we follow the pattern of our daily living:

"That they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5.15).

We demonstrate in our attitude to work and to our masters, to money and to time, to wives and to children and to ail men, that we are His bondslaves:

"Whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; ... ye serve the Lord Christ" (Colossians 3.23,24).

It was said of Paul that he was a chosen vessel to do great things for his Master, and he was endowed with great gifts to do them. He was diligent in the exercise of these gifts as he fervently and fearlessly preached the gospel and as he shrank not from declaring unto them the whole counsel of God, though the doing of it brought him ridicule and suffering. "For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline." In comparison it may seem that our gifts are small, but to each one something is given and we are responsible to use our gifts diligently, "as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4.10). Are we good stewards? Or are we so apathetic as to allow the gift to remain unused; buried in the earth perhaps, or just allowed to waste because we have wrong thoughts of our Master. In Ephesians 4.12 we are instructed as to the purpose for which the gifts were given. May we ask ourselves whether we are using them to this end?

Opportunities for service abound. Let us yield ourselves to the Master to do what He wants us to do remembering that it is important to be

"More careful not to serve Thee much,

But please Thee perfectly".

It is not bulk that counts, but rather the approval of our service by Him whom we serve. Whether little or much, whether public or private, the aim of such service as we are privileged to do must be to please God and to be approved of Him.

"Even as we have been approved of God to be intrusted with the gospel, so we speak;

Not as pleasing men, but God which proveth our hearts" (1 Thessalonians 2.4).

L.A. Hickling, Derby | Aug 1968
Service