GALATIANS 6:9 – And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
THEME OF THE DAY: KEEP ON KEEPING ON. Want to be a faithful and fruitful servant of the Lord Jesus? Be prepared to get tired. Want to make a difference for Christ in our homes, churches, and communities? Be prepared to “burn the midnight oil” in exhausting labor. Want to leave the sweet fragrance of the Lord Jesus in every relationship? Be prepared to live a life of sacrificial inconvenience! Howard Hendricks once said, “The service that counts is the service that costs.”
So, knowing the cost our Lord demands we pay to serve Him and impact our world for Him, what are motivators to help us keep on when tempted to head for the sidelines? I will offer two.
First, the example of our Lord Jesus. He told us in the Upper Room Discourse He has left His followers a humble example when He washed their feet – When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them (John 13:12-17). The only way to follow His humble example is to put the interests of others ahead of our own. And this requires the weariness of developing self-denial and self-discipline; both requiring extreme sacrifice, even to the point of exhaustion. Why? We don’t like denying ourselves. We like satisfying ourselves with ease and comfort.
Another motivator is when we see Jesus. Just think for a moment of that glorious day when we exchange faith for sight. We are before the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who bears the marks on His body of the exhausting and life-draining service He willingly embraced for us. And when we see Him, if we obeyed today’s scripture, to look at His brilliant and beautiful face and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” will make every sleepless night, every tear shed, every agonizing hour in prayer, every late-night weeping with those who hurt, every act of service unrecognized by others, and every kind word spoken to lift up a downcast brother or sister worth the toil (Matthew 25:23).
There are other motivators to keep us serving with zeal and faithfulness, but at the end of the day, it is all about being approved by the Lord, not people. May we strive for that single goal each day!
PRAYER: “Father, forgive me when I allow my flesh’s desire for comfort to override Your call to sacrificial service.”
QUOTE: “Jesus knows the weariness required to fulfill the will of God, and we will too if we want to fulfill the will of God.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim