Serve: May 19, 2011

May 19, 2011 TODAYS WORD FOR THURSDAY MAY 19, 2011

SERVE

DEFINITION:

Attend or wait upon; work for; be a substitute for.

SCRIPTURE:

You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 1 Samuel 12:20

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

How many times have you said to yourself or to others and even prayed to God saying that you wanted to serve God? And at the same time you knew that you needed the Lord in the activities you were doing. And then a few hours later you were off on your own and doing things your way and not serving God.

When the people of Israel insisted on having a king, despite the warnings of Samuel, the prophet reminded them that the Lord God was their King (1 Samuel 12:12). God allowed them to have their own way. But when they realized the evil thing they had done by their choice, they asked for Samuel’s help and prayers. (1 Samuel 12:19) Samuel gave the following response to the Children of Israel, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart” (1 Samuel 12:20, above). Even when we do the wrong thing God does not give up on us. He wants us to return to following Him and to serve Him.

What a wonderful example for us today. When we fail to serve God as we know we should, remember we cannot undo what we did yesterday or the day before but we can act today. Samuel in verse 24 urged the Children of Israel to, “Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your hearts; for consider what great things He has done for you.”

When we fail to serve the Lord we need to humbly ask for His forgiveness and acknowledge His faithfulness to us. God wants us to serve Him today and we cannot let yesterdays failures bankrupt tomorrow’s victories.

We can remember the great anticipation we experienced right after we were married arriving in Seoul Korea for our new responsibilities with World Vision. We arrived with some fear but totally dedicated to serving Jesus with all of our hearts, minds and souls. Arriving in a war torn country, new customs, a new place to live, not speaking the language and having no friends or even acquaintances quickly reminded us that we could not do this on our own but to serve God we needed to totally rely on Him. If we are willing to serve the Lord with our whole heart, He will not reject us. He will give us the victory.

The certainty of the return of Christ is probably the greatest reason we need to serve the Lord daily. The anticipation we have of this great event should really overwhelm our hearts with excitement and give us a new desire daily to serve our Lord.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in Ecclesiastics 12:1.

Remember now thy creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, “I have no pleasure in them.”

PRAYER:

Thank You for the great anticipation You have given to us in expecting Your soon return to take us as believers to spend eternity in heaven with You. Help us to serve You every moment of today so that we can anticipate with certainty your soon coming.