Serving Others

This past week I read a interesting story about a minister who served a church for many years, then one day the church asked him to leave. He confided to another preacher friend and said, “What they did to me was dirty. After all I did for them, and they treat me this way.” The preacher friend listening to him thought to himself, “It’s a shame he didn’t do it for God.” If you’re using God for the attention it brings to you, stop that today. You are supposed to serve God; the only attention it should bring to you is from a lost soul watching you who wants to know how to live the life you have. If you’re doing right, people may mistreat you, but what difference does it make if you are serving the Lord? God will prove Himself faithful and will reward you for your obedience. When our own faults are clearly before our eyes, we have no room left for criticizing others. We all get to heaven the same way, saved by Grace through Jesus Christ. When we, in genuine and personal humility, see others as we should, we will quit looking for ways to please ourselves and begin to look for ways to help others. Rather than using others to better ourselves, we will use ourselves to better others. What thoughts or plans have you made for this day? Are you planning the hours in such a way as to better your own situation or as to better the situation of others around you? Is your great concern the fulfillment of personal ambitions or is your ambition to lose yourself in the service and benefiting of God’s people around you? How we plan our day, how we use our time, how we spend our money — these are all measures of true humility. May your self-esteem be transformed today into service for others. May you find the great joy and satisfaction that only comes from giving up your own pleasure for the sake of others’.