Why do you do voluntary service? Because you enjoy it? Because it makes you a better person? Because it pleases your pastor or your spouse or someone else? Because you feel you need to pitch in and do your share?
There were "church workers" called Levites in Ezekiel 44 whom God exposed as serving for the reasons above!
They had their eyes on themselves and on others, but not on Him.
This particular group of Levites had a long history of serving themselves and other people -- to the point of even helping others in their idol worship! (Correct doctrine isn't too important to you when you get carried away wanting to please other people.)
And God said, "All right, from now on just please people, not Me. You weren't focused on Me before; from now on I won't allow you to be. You can keep on doing church 'busy work,' but I won't let you minister to Me Myself."
It makes all the difference.
An eye fixed on self is full of confusion: "How much commitment is commitment? If I teach a Sunday school class can I never go away weekends? If I join the choir, what happens when choir practice night comes and I'm exhausted?"
The "me generation" says, "I can only be somewhat committed to you because I'm first committed to me."
[A man] said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family."
Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:61-62).
But fix your eyes on Jesus, and you yourself will be helped the most.
An eye fixed on service to others is full of politics, and the service is performed in
bossiness
fussiness
competition
criticalness
selfwill
ego
But fix your eyes on Jesus, and others will be helped the most.
You have access to the Lord Himself! Don't stop short in the vestibule.
Are you a "ministry-centered" person? You'll get depleted, irritated and abrasive, exhausted.
Are you a "Christ-centered" person? Even as you serve Him, you'll stay nourished, happy, rested.
Fix your eyes on Jesus!
* * * * *
Let's talk to Him about our service -- I, Anne Ortlund, and you, too -- through an old Puritan prayer:
O my Lord,
Forgive me for serving thee in sinful ways --
by glorying in my own strength,
by forcing myself to minister through necessity,
by accepting the applause of others,
by trusting in assumed grace and spiritual affection,
by a faith that rests on my hold on Christ,
not on him alone . . . .
Help me to see
that it is faith stirred by grace that does the deed . . .
that faith centers in thee as God all-sufficient,
Father, Son, Holy Spirit . . .
If I have not such faith I am nothing . . . .
Keep me in a faith that works by love,
and serves by grace." Amen.
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