Serving the Lord or Serving People?

POCKET DEVOTIONS: Time With God's Word

Acts 20:19a
I served the Lord...

Thoughts for Today:

The movie, "The End of the Spear" is the true story of a young boy and his family growing up with the Ecuadoran tribe who murdered his missionary father and friends -- the very tribesmen they had intended to save. Many of us in a similar situation would be more consumed with rage and retribution than we would with preaching Jesus and salvation.

In our passage today one might ask the question, how was Paul able to go on with his mission despite regularly being ridiculed, verbally attacked, threatened, and even physically beaten? The answer: because he served the Lord rather than people. It is the same message retold and relearned in "The End of the Spear" -- serve God not man. It is the only way we are able to overcome the pain and disappointment we are bound to encounter when we try to serve sin-filled man.

Questions to Ponder:

Have you been let down, disappointed and thoroughly disgusted with the people who you have tried to help? Has your experience affected your desire to want to get involved again? In other words, why help someone who is just going to make waste of all your effort, right? Wrong! An appropriate heart for service is to the Lord, not man. Man may be the recipient, but the author is God. 1 Peter 4:10-11 says, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen."