Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Christian Service, 2of5



~ Qualifications For Effective Christian Service ~

Serve With Sincerity and Truth  ~  Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt.  Serve the Lord!” (Joshua 24:14). 

Serve With Sincerity From the Heart  ~  Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.  And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.  But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality” (Colossians 3:22-25). 

Serve With Integrity of Walk  ~  But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing” (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12). 

Serve With a Good Reputation  ~  From the time of my youth, my life has been lived among my own people in Jerusalem.  Practically every Jew in town who watched me grow up—and if they were willing to stick their necks out they'd tell you in person—knows that I lived as a strict Pharisee, the most demanding branch of our religion.  It's because I believed it and took it seriously, committed myself heart and soul to what God promised my ancestors—the identical hope, mind you, that the twelve tribes have lived for night and day all these centuries” (Acts 26:4-7a, The Message).

Serve With Complete Dedication  ~  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). 

Serve With Uprightness of Heart  ~  “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). 

Serve With Undefiled Conduct  ~  To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74-75). 

Serve With Sound Motives  ~  For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.  But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:5-6). 

Serve With Wholeness of Being  ~  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28). 

~ Robert Lloyd Russell, ABUNDANT LIFE NOW

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