Learning and Growing in Serving

The Lord has been showing me some things, and really working in my heart recently about becoming more servant minded.  I fall so short and so often in this way, and want so much to live each day faithfully as His servant and giving myself fully to serve others.  These are a few of the things the Lord has led me to meditate on recently . . .

 

 “You do not exist for yourself; God made you to glorify him by serving others.”  - Joel Beeke

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.”  - 1 Corinthians 10:24

"The real test of a saint is not one's willingness to preach the gospel, but one's willingness to do something like washing the disciples' feet - that is, being willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God." - Oswald Chambers

“[Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”  - John 13:5 

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Mark 10:45

"He (Jesus) made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. . . "  Phil. 2:7

“Once you learn to approach each day with the heart of a servant, you soon find that one person really can make a difference.  There is joy and real peace in that way of living."  - Chuck Swindoll

“ . . . dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good.”  - 2 Thessalonians 3:13

 “Are you prepared to serve other people in whatever way they need to be served – no matter how humble, nor matter how unnoticed that work may be?”  - Elizabeth Elliott

“So my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable.  Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”  - 1 Corinthians 15:58

“Consider your gifts, your talents, your vocation, and your circumstances as a special trust from God with which to serve him by serving others.  As Peter says, ‘Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.’  (1 Peter 4:10).  Remember that you are responsible not for doing all the good that needs to be done in the world, but for doing what God has planned for you.

Remember also that most opportunities for doing good come across the ordinary path of our day.  Don’t look for the spectacular; few people ever have the opportunity to pull a victim from the wreckage of a burning automobile.  All of us have the opportunity to administer the kind or encouraging word, to do the little, perhaps unseen, deed that makes life more pleasant for someone else.

Accept the cost of good deeds in time, thought and effort.  But remember that opportunities for doing good are not interruptions in God’s plan for us, but part of that plan.  We always have time to do what God wants us to do.

Acknowledge your need of his divine grace to enlarge your soul and enable you to look beyond yourself to the concerns and needs of those around you.  Then, come to His throne with confidence to receive the grace you need to grow in the fruit of kindness and goodness.”  - Jerry Bridges, in the Practice of Godliness

"For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to gratify your flesh, but through love make it your habit to serve one another." - Galatians 5:13

"This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him. Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God's way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness." - Elisabeth Elliott