I began to share last week about how this misspelled sign began to make me think. In this process I came across and article that really caused me to stop and ponder the phrase "I AM DOING THIS TO SERVE GOD." We have probably all said this and I believe we say and motivate ourselves with this phrase. David Mathis, executive pastoral assistant to Bethlehem Baptist Church, brings up some interesting thoughts. Here is a summary.
"Sacrificial service in the church doesn't start with serving. It starts with being served by God. Then as we are satisfied in Him and who He's revealed Himself to be in His crucified Son, we gladly overflow in service of others. The Bible actually warns us against serving God. There is a clear sense in which we must not serve Him. Paul says that God is not "served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives all mankind life and breath and everything"(Acts 17:25). We humans can't give God anything that He hasn't already given to us. The sense that we serve in in that we serve others. And we do so "by the strength that God supplies" (1 Peter 4:11) God is the giver. Dutiful sacrifice doesn't honor GOd as much as it honors our stone-like will. And thus it undercuts the very source of strength that enables us to serve others."
What I see David Mathis doing is really putting scripture behind the thought that we are to serve as overflow of being totally satisfied in God.
So I am once again a "COSTOMER." My ability to serve others "COST" God, and it took the ultimate sacrifice for me to be able to serve others. But I am not the one that paid the price, God did.
Mark Kuykendall - Youth Pastor, Bethel Bible Church
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