It is a privilege to serve God.
Ephesians 3:7-11 By God's grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving Him by spreading this Good News. 8 Though I am the least deserving of all God's people, He graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. 9 I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. 10 God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was His eternal plan, which He carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Most of us don't like the idea of being used, it usually implies that someone has taken advantage of us, but the people that are being used by God don't mind it at all and they are usually very happy about it. In our selfish, sinful world people get used and mistreated everyday, we are not very nice to the people around us but there is somebody that we should be happy to have use us.
The Apostle Paul tells us that he was very privileged to be used by God. Paul was always zealous for God and wanted to be useful and obedient, that's why he was so well studied in the ways of Judaism, most of his life had been spent learning how to please God. Paul really thought that he knew God's will.
It is easy to think that your busyness is helping you accomplish God's will for your life but sometimes we are missing the mark just as bad as Paul did. Imagine spending so much time trying to please God with your life, going to the temple to learn from the local rabbi, studying everything that he taught about God and then you find out that the way to please God is totally opposite of what you had learned. God had to show him that he wasn't interested in the work that Paul was doing for him.
Instead of shoving Paul over to the side and deciding the he wasn't useful God gave him a chance for a turn around. He didn't deserve a do over but God corrected Paul's understanding about the Old Testament and revealed the truth of the Messiah to him so that he could understand the events that just happened in Jerusalem surrounding Jesus.
| Appointed by God |
|---|
| John 15:16 You didn't choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit. |
None of us deserve to have God find us useful and beneficial to his work but by his grace we get to have a job doing kingdom work. God's grace chose to use me without any regard for my resume or my past performance.
God wants me to be his servant, someone that is a waiter or a foot washer, jobs that don't sit well with a lot of people. God wants me to serve with a sense of who I really am without him. There isn't any room for pride or glorifying myself when I think about how much he has done for me as a wretched sinner without hope.
I need to be the church by serving in the role that God has called me to work in. The church is here to bring glory to God but that will not happen unless we are obedient to God's call and serve him with our lives. (Ephesians 3:10, Matthew 5:16)
Lord help me to understand your will and the work that you have appointed for me to accomplish.
