2 Kings 4 is the story of a wealthy Shunammite woman. She made a guest room in her house for the great prophet Elisha. And so one day he says to her, “You have gone to all this trouble. Now what can be done for you?” (v. 6) What I love about this story is she didn’t build the room so Elisha would one day do something for her. And Elisha didn’t ask her what he could do for her because he had to. They both genuinely wanted to serve the other person.
Far too many people come into a relationship with Jesus just wanting to get more from him. I get really frustrated when preachers twist the true Gospel and replace it with a prosperity Gospel that says if you are following him, God will bless you and you will live a prosperous life. You give this much money and God will take care of your debt, or you do something for someone else and next time you’ll get the perfect parking spot.
We don’t serve God in order to get more from him We’ve already received Jesus. He is the prize. He is the great reward! We serve God because he first served us….
Our gratitude for what God has done leads us to serve him. We don’t serve God because we have to or because it’s how we earn our salvation. We serve God because of everything he’s done for us, and for this reason:
While serving others won’t save you, it just may help save someone else. Only the Holy Spirit can save someone, but the Holy Spirit lives inside all those who believe in him. That means he can use someone like you to help save someone else. You are more powerful than you realize!
(Source: Zach Zehnder, Red Letter Challenge, pp. 26-27)
#redletterchallenge #serving
Farewell to Shadowlands 