serve God joyfully

Today for Bible Study in church, Reina led a very good BS session. In fact, it was a rather thought-provoking and ministering session. For the past few weeks, I've been struggling in the area of service for God. Which is what Reina shared=)

Why serve?

Why serve God?

Why serve not gladly?

Why serve non-Christians through Christians?

These were really thought-provoking questions, that had me stopped very often too, not because the brain was tired.. Rather, these questions caught me totally off-guard. They struck me hard. And if the questions were tough, check out the answers (if I can even verbalise them).

(As these questions are mostly issues each of us has to struggle and wrestle with God ourselves, I'll jump to the third question.)

Why serve not gladly?
1. no focus on God.
2. no absolute (due to lack of appreciation)
3. no love for God. *Ouch*

It is true. When we serve God, sometimes we may get disillusioned and be unhappy (for a whole list of reasons). But by doing so, it means we don't love God. Ok, I'm sure out of the bottom of our hearts, even when we are unhappy, we would at least love God 3% or maybe 20%. But, as long as we don't love God 100%, it isn't really love. So maybe we aren't exactly unhappy. We don't think, "darn, I hate doing this. Why am I doing this?" But, as long as we end up loving or seeking after something else, and God becomes, even a close second, we don't love God.

How do we serve then?
" We should ask how God wants to be served, not how we want to serve."

It's so deceiving sometimes, that we may think (at least, I know I did) that God calls us to serve Him in a certain area we are particularly good at, or we enjoy. But, there are times, if I may even dare to add, often at times, what God wants and what I want can be vastly different.

For the past few weeks, I was seriously contemplating if I should join a particular ministry. As if I hadn't learnt my lesson, from the previous 2 churches, I thought I would toy with the idea. Thank God for friends who prayed, and for God who intervened so swiftly, that the idea was snuffed out once again. God made it very clear that He wanted me to work with His people, His children in the background. Just as God had provided me in my teen years (gosh, I'm freaking old. To think I can look back and reminisce my 'teen years') with older Christians and pastors who bothered to take the time to guide me, and I had been richly blessed by their wisdom and time, God wanted me to do the same.

So, it's back to youth ministry, after a three-quarter year hiatus^ ^

Just to end off, I thought I'd leave with something highly ironic. You know how people often gripe and moan about how it's so tiring to serve God, that it takes too much of them (us)?

John 4:34
"My food," said Jesus, "s to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

For Jesus, doing God's work gives him the strength, the 'food'.
Amazing, ain't it? By right, we should get energized and ministered when we serve God.

It's my prayer that each one of us would serve God joyfully in our whole lives:)