Keep On Serving

All day long the question has been running through my mind about what to do after prayer.  When you have prayed concerning a specific matter and you are waiting to hear from God.  Of course I consulted the Word of God.  So many times we become frustrated waiting on an answer.  The verse I was led to was Romans 12:12.  'Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer'.   Paul went on to say in the next verse 'Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality'. (verse 13)  What did I get from those verses?  Keep on Serving.  Continue to hope.  Be patient. Continue to pray.  But more importantly keep doing the work of the Lord.  There are more souls that need to be saved.  There are fellow Christians who need to be encouraged. And who better the do that work than you.

It is easy to become consumed with our problems.  We pray and we cry.  We fast and we pray. We even ask others to pray for us. We also sit down.  We complain that things are too hard.  We say that God won't mind if I take a Sunday off.  I'm just going to take a small sabbatical from the choir, Sunday School, Bible Study.  We don't bother to think about the person who may be watching us who is encouraged by our walk with God.  So what does it mean to rejoice in hope?  It means we look past the present to the future that God has promised us.  We praise our way through the storm.  Patient in tribulation?  Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstance.  Instead of reacting we refrain from any action.  Instead we decide to trust completely in the Lord. The one who knew my ending before my beginning.  The one who laid the very foundation of this earth and the One who will still be standing in the end.  It is in You, O Lord, that I put my trust.  And while rejoicing and being patient, you must never stop praying.  Your prayer should be confident and with that prayer you should have an attitude of expectancy.  And furthermore, your prayers should include prayer for others.  People are always standing in the need.  A Christian should not have an attitude that's about Me, Me, ME...all the time.  Yes, you may be going through.  But I can almost guarantee that the brother or sister sitting beside you is also going through.  That person sitting next to you in the choir stand may be doing all they can just to hold on.  They got up that morning saying "I must go to church because I need to see Jesus."  Then there is that unsaved person or that backslider who works in the cubicle next to you at work. If you sit down and stop serving, if you put a shade over the light that shines from you, then what Jesus will they see.  It's so funny to me that we can choose to stop serving God because of  our circumstances but we will go to work everyday.  We continue to take our children to the sports activities.  we even continue to live life as normal as we can but we shut out the only One who can really help us.  There have been many days that my person trials could have stopped me from sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ but a child of God is who I am.  It overflows from my soul.  It is the essence of my heart.  I don't have any option but to serve Him by serving others. He's been just too good for me to let Him down.  I can't see my sister or my brother hurting and just walk by them without smiling or saying an encouraging word.  Just saying a prayer in my spirit for them is helping them more than anything else I can do.  I can't say how much fellowshipping with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ helps me.  God is always setting up divine appointments for us to be a witness for Him.  The question of the day is will you be obedient to the call?  Reading through the gospels about the life of Jesus, I can recall many times when it would have been just as easy for Him to say "Father, this is too much."  But He didn't.  He kept right on doing the will of the one who sent Him.  That is what we must do.  We must always remember to put our trust in Jesus and to hope in Him.  We can wait patiently knowing that God is still on the throne and there is no one more powerful than Him.  He reigns over all the earth.  Daily communion with God is not optional, it is necessary for our survival.  Having an open, honest conversation with God.  And then after you have prayed, you must continue to serve Him.  There is not a better reminder of who God is than to share your testimony with someone about where He has brought you from.  To see someone's spirit lifted because you are there for them in their time of need.  They may even know that you are going through something yourself right now but you are still working for the Lord.  If that isn't a testimony of who God is, I don't know what is.  Be encouraged my brother and sister and always remember that God has a job for you to do.  And your patience allows room for God to work, teaching us, instructing us, and refining us through the furnace of affliction. The difficult times are when God often builds in us the deepest character.

Most Gracious Heavenly Father, 
I come to You today standing in need of a renewed mind.  The devil is trying to control my mind with thoughts of defeat but I will not be defeated.  I know that I can do all things in You who gives me strength daily.  I know that I am more than a conqueror and that I must continue to work even when I am weak.  I know that I must continue to serve You because You are an all-sufficient God who is able to provide for me whatever I need.  I thank You for everything you have done for me and everything you are going to do for me.  It is in the Wonderful Name of Jesus I pray Amen.