Our Service – A Love Offering To God

By Lois J. Stucky (1928 – 2014)

    Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you” (Matt. 11:29).  He wants us to be free from the heavy, galling yoke of self-seeking or of heartless duty.  He wants us to be linked with Him in serving God cheerfully, humbly and wholeheartedly.  Jesus could say, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God” (Psa. 40:8).  He wants us to share with Him this same joy – “...that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:10-11).

    Our service for the Lord may seemingly be the performance of simple, menial tasks.  But the heart can be singing and making a melody of love to the Lord all the while.  And the mind and hands can be “making melody” at the same time by their careful and diligent attendance to service.  When we see someone with a take-it-easy, half-hearted, careless attitude and service, it tells much about what is in the heart.  Someone has said, “What a man loves is what you see him placing his whole heart into.”  Love must give its best.

    Many in the world have simply the goal of earning a living and of acquiring that which will be for their pleasure and comfort.  They work with an eye on the clock.  They speak of their work as the “grind.”  Or perhaps they have the ambition of building a reputation or of achieving authority, and they drive themselves hard in that direction.  How different is the glad, willing service of one whose joy and aim is to please his Beloved and to further His purposes!

    When love reigns, it is not “How much can I get?” but “How much can I give?”  It is not a getting by with the least but a going the “second mile.”  “God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7), not only of money and possessions, but of himself.

    God’s ways are above our own.  He sometimes calls one from cherished plans and preferences of his own to do a work he would not of himself chose.  That man in the natural might drive himself on with the whiplash of duty, or grow “sour” or turn back.  But in a way that can be better experienced than explained, God gives His grace to the willing, obedient heart so that with a zeal and a zest he presses on in that which God gives him to do.  This is a beautiful manifestation of God’s grace in the heart – that the glory shall be His.

    The Kingly Bridegroom Jesus is soon to come!  He is looking for quality service worthy of the King.  Does He find it in you and in me?

    In the spirit of Jesus who said, “I lay down My life…no man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself” (John 10:17-18), let us lay down our lives in selfless service – first to God and then to man.  Let us praise the Lord not only with our lips but with the will of an obedient heart and with the work of faithful hands.