The article below is an excerpt of one from Josh Hunt, a phenomenal teacher of Bible teachers & an exemplary follower of Jesus. You can learn more of his heart & his ministry by linking from his name above. I was challenged & I pray that you will be too.
Do you serve God to give or to get?
The real spirit of the question is, "Should you serve God to give or to get?" If you were all you should be, godly and right thinking and mature and Christ-like, would you serve God for what you could get out of it, or what you could contribute?
I think we would quickly agree that we should serve God to give. We should be more about contributing and less about receiving. We should, if we were more godly, serve God to serve God--to give. We might think so, but we would be wrong.
Hebrews 11.6 lists two steps to drawing near to God: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
The two steps are:
- We must believe that God exists. Turns out, this is a pretty easy step. About ninety-five percent of people on planet earth do believe that God exists. Even the devil believes that God exists.
- We must believe that God rewards. As the NASV has it, "He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." We either come to God for reward, or we cannot come to God. We must come to God seeking to get a reward. There is no other way.
It makes sense if you think about it. If we are thinking rightly, we realize He is rich and we are poor; He has plenty, we have need; He is strong we are week. The idea that we would come to God to help God out might sound good at first blush, but if we think about it at all we realize we can't help God out. He doesn't need anything. He certainly doesn't need anything we have to offer. We don't have anything He needs. We can't do anything for Him that He needs us to do. He is complete. We are needy.
Eventually we come to the place where we say, as the old Hymn writer said it, "I need Thee every hour. . I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee."
How wrong it would be to turn this classic hymn on its head and say, "You need me, oh you need me, every hour you need me." The writer got it right.
Jesus emphasized this point of reward in Mark 10: “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” Mark 10:29-30 (NIV)
C.S. Lewis talked about this:
"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. "
The research indicates this was the #1 predictor of spiritual vibrancy: whether you strongly agreed with the statement, "It is always in my best interest to live the Christian life." People who strongly agreed with that statement were two and a half times (145%) more likely to be spiritually vibrant when compared with those who only agreed with that statement. When compared with those who disagreed with the statement, those who strongly agree were five and a half times (450%) more likely to be spiritually vibrant. This one factor mattered more than anything else I could find.
You might be tempted to think this is a rather abstract theological point that has not much to do with every day life. You'd be wrong. Here is why.
We are irrevocably hard wired to pursue what we believe to be in our best interest. It is built into our programming. We can't avoid it. We have to learn to live with it. If we believe that God is a rewarder and we will be rewarded for following Him, His yoke becomes easy and we follow Him almost automatically. If we think we should follow Him but we would rather go our own way because we think we know best, we are going to be in a constant battle of the will with God. It is not enough to submit our will to Him. We must believe--not merely believe that He exists. We must believe He always rewards. We must believe it is impossible to follow God and not be rewarded. Ought-to, and should and you-better will never do. We must believe that he rewards.
I have written thousands and thousands of sentences, but I have only written one that I think is profound. Here it is:
We must come to love the Christian life,
or we will never come to live the Christian life.
Break it down: we must come to love prayer, or we don't pray very well. Prayer moves from being a duty and an obligation and becomes a delight--a sweet hour of prayer--or we are not praying very well.
We come to love serving or we are not serving very much.
We come to love the Word and it become sweeter than honey as the Bible says, or I will bet you struggle to spend time in the Word. You have to force yourself and you can't force yourself consistently.
You must come to love the Christian life, or you will never come to live the Christian life.
Self-discipline is over-rated in a lot of Christian teaching. Not to say there is not a place for self-discipline. Balance is an issue. Sometimes you need self-discipline. Sometimes we need to do what we should do whether or not we feel like it. But, if you try to live your whole life this way, you are in trouble. If you trying to live your whole life forcing yourself to do what you don't want to do because you don't think it is in your best interest, you can't live that way. You will get tired. Eventually you will do what you believe to be in your best interest.
You must come to love the Christian life, or you will never come to live the Christian life.
Lord Jesus, grow my love of you & all things that will assist me in loving you better. Amen.
