Some thoughts on serving...

"Worship the Lord your God, and only Him. Serve Him with absolute single-heartedness."

Matt. 4:10

This verse jumped out at me while doing a search for a verse on serving. I'm not a big grammar-lover, but I know the words "worship" and "serve" are both verbs. And I know that a verb requires action.

In light of our trip to Gabon, I think this short verse can speak volumes into our lives. It's not enough to sign up to GO...from this day until "departure day" we must put action into our everyday lives. We will not worship or serve God by accident. We WILL worship and serve SOMETHING every day...but true worship and serving God happens when we are intentional about it. God doesn't just want our service to the people we meet in Gabon. He wants that to be one more mark on our calendar...a trip resulting from a natural outpouring of something that we are daily doing for Him.

May we CHOOSE to worship God in the way that we live our everyday, ordinary lives TODAY. That means putting my SELFish desires off. It means I can't REACT everytime I want to...I can't give someone a piece of my mind (even when I think I'm right!). It means HE gets more of me than anything else in my life....anything else.

May we CHOOSE to serve God today with single-heartedness. The definition of single-heartedness is this: sincere and undivided in feeling or spirit; dedicated; not reflecting mixed emotions.

How often do we reflect mixed emotions in our worship and service to God. We are so conditional. We WANT to worship Him and we WANT to serve Him...but only when the conditions are just right for us.

My prayer for our team is that we will grow to individually give God our undivided worship and service. That we will each live lives worthy of our calling every day. In our schools, our homes, our jobs, and in our neighborhoods. Let's not accidently fall into a place of worship or serving others...let's run after it. Let's be so intentional in all that we do that no one we meet will ever be surprised to find out we are going on a missions trip to share Jesus.

Worship: to feel an adoring reverence or regard. (Synonyms: adoration, adulation, devotion, homage, admire, adore)

Serve: to act as a servant