Different people are motivated by different reasons to serve God.
A God-fearing king once gave this advice to his son: “Know the God of your father and serve him with a complete heart and with a delightful soul.” (1 Chronicles 28:9)
We should want to serve God because we know Him; an inherent part of knowing Him is a desire to serve Him.
The more we learned about Him, the stronger our desire to serve him “with a complete heart and with a delightful soul.”
First Corinthians 13 makes it clear that, unless our service is rooted in love, it’s meaningless. Serving God out of a sense of obligation or duty, apart from love for God, is not what He desires. Rather, serving God should be our natural, love-filled response to Him who loved us first.
Like lost sheep with no shepherd, many of us stray away because we are unsure if God really Loves us. We doubt His ability to stand and defend us. We think He is cruel and fast to anger. We often run away just like Jonah did.
Do you remember the story of the prodigal son? Am sure you do.
We can give away only what we’ve first received. When we closely follow up Jesus’ journey, we notice that it was entirely centered on serving this father. Not my will, but the Lord’s will be done, he once said.
The reason we can love and serve God is that He first loved and served us through Jesus Christ. The more we are aware of and experience God’s love in our own lives, the more prone we are to respond in love by serving Him.
If you want to want to serve God, the key is to get to know Him! Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal more of God to you (John 16:13). When we truly know God, who is love (1 John 4:8), our natural response is a desire to love and serve Him in return.
By Paul Dennis
