Is serving God important? How can we serve Him?
Yes, serving God is important; it is our response to Him.God did not create us for the purpose of serving Him, as Paul stated when telling the Greeks in Athens about God when he said, "nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything" (Acts 17:25). God created us because He wanted to. In Revelation 4:11, the 24 elders fell down before God and said, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."
Our response to Him creating us should be to serve Him. And serving Him includes serving others. In what is commonly called the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus used His example of washing His disciples' feet to show that we should engage in service to others. He said, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them" (John 13:14-17). Jesus was telling His disciples that service is important to God. Jesus also stated elsewhere that the order of importance in God's kingdom is not the same as man thinks. He said, in Mark 9:35, "…If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." Service is important to God, so it should be important to us.
In providing for His church, God gave us gifts—not for our own uplifting, but for building up the church. Paul, in teaching the Corinthians about spiritual gifts, wrote "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Corinthians 12:7). Peter emphasized this in 1 Peter 4:10-11, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." God has not only created us because He wanted to but He has equipped us to advance according to His standards. Improving our own standing is not what He desires, but we should work for the betterment of others.
So this raises the question of how serving God translates into serving other people. If we are to serve God, we must know and follow His standards. God's standard of greatness is not the same as ours. His standard, that of love, puts others first (1 Corinthians 13), so we should put others first in order to follow His standards. In serving God, we will serve other people.
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