Who Are You Serving?

5-14-2010
Who Are You Serving

It’s easy to want to please man. Quite frankly, I bet most of us; if not all of us, do our best to win the approval of man on a rather consistent basis. There’s nothing wrong with this, as long as what you are doing is in line with what God wants you to do, and if your first goal is to please God.

In Philippians 1:12 Paul says, “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.” Remember, Paul is in chains at this point in time for preaching the gospel. Imagine if you were put in chains for speaking about the maker of the world! Being imprisoned would cause a lot of us to lose hope, or start the blame game. Instead, Paul viewed this as an opportunity to make an impact for the kingdom of God. Paul gives us the perfect example of what to do during tough times. We are going to have peaks and valleys in life, and our job is to find the good in all of those situations.

As a Christ follower, you truly understand the things of this world are only temporary; therefore, it makes sense that Paul would devote his time in prison to Christ. Just about anyone in his situation would stop preaching the gospel so they could be freed from prison, yet Paul continued to deliver truth. One of my daily prayers goes like this, “my goal is to win your approval Lord, and not the approval of man. Take from me the desire to win man’s approval, unless it lines up with your approval.” It’s easy to fight for worldly approval, but Christ isn’t concerned with what the world thinks. Each and every one of us makes the decision to either serve God or serve man. Granted, Christ has called us to serve every one, so the point we need to gather from the bible passage is to serve Christ at all times. At the end of your road, you are going to meet your maker, and my prayer for you is he says, “Job well done my good and faithful servant!”

Application:
1.Read Philippians 1:12-30
2.What facet of your life do you tend to “hide” God? Why?