Who We Serve

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3: 23-24 NKJV

I've been caught up in the wrong thinking more than once.   Convincing myself that things that I do are justified, even if they are ultimately wrong.  Who hasn't been in this position?  We're mistreated by others, and we can thereby justify any response we can come up with in response to it.  We're in a low paying job, so we feel justified with not giving our best effort.  The problem with this way of thinking, I've found, is that it puts us front and center while keeping God in the background.  While we may know that everything we will ever have we receive from God, we feel that we can do things better on our own.  I don't think I need to remind anyone of the dangers of our pride and why our Lord has no need for it.  This life that we live is not of our own accord, EVERYTHING that we have and see around us was created and provided for by God.  Our own salvation is one of Gods greatest gifts.  I think what this ultimately comes down to is understanding who it is that we serve.  God is the one that provided that low paying job I/we  complain about.  That obnoxious person we feel so strongly justified in rebuking?  Yes, he provided for them also.  Does it ever cross our minds that those obnoxious people that God brings into our lives are sent from him to work in our own lives?  As we labor  in what we see as a dead end job, do we consider why God has us tthere?  Gods word does well to inform us that our ways are not his ways and our thoughts are not his.  So, even though we may be in what we think is a bad situation, our Lord is working in the background.  He  never does anything out of spite, but out of love and mercy for his children.  I think the best example of this is in the near the end of the book of Job.  Job had lost all of his possesions to satans schemes, so one would think that this man would have a right to feel slighted?  Jobs three friends really didn't do too much to comfort him either.  Well, in Job 40:6 God begins his questioning of Job.  I'd  suggest that no attorney could have ever come up with such a brilliant defense.  Then again, that's why God is who he is.  One thing that this man Job did not forget, he knew in his heart who it was that he served.

~Scott~