Have you ever gone to a restaurant and received bad service? Do you remember how that made you feel? The food could be cooked perfectly and your company incredibly pleasant, but bad service can ruin the entire experience. Service really does make the difference. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” In this verse God tells us three things about service that enhance how we experience Him in our daily walk.
First, God equips us to serve. God has given each of us a gift. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like to receive a present. A list of spiritual gifts can be found in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. So how do we determine which gift or gifts we have? There are simple spiritual gift tests online that can help you. One such site is SpiritualGiftsTest.com. Service is work, and God equips His saints for this task. My dad told me that if you enjoy what you do, you will never work a day in your life. Finding out what our gifts are will help us to make the work of service a great joy as we walk with the LORD.
Second, God instructs us how serve. We serve one another. This seems self-explanatory, but to serve one another we must hang out with one another. We live in a very isolated culture today. God designed us to be in community. The gifts we received are to be used for the benefit of the body. God has uniquely placed all of us at The Way Fellowship Church. When we don’t serve others, we are only serving ourselves. When we don’t serve, we miss out on the joy of fulfilling our created purpose and the body misses out on a need being fulfilled. Serving one another allows us to experience God and others to experience God’s love through us.
Finally, God shows us what it means to serve. We are to be good stewards of His various graces. God has trusted us with gifts; we need to be faithful with them. We are blessed to bless others. By serving others we are humbled. We are transformed to look to others before ourselves. We get to see the Holy Spirit working in us and through us to meet the needs of a community. God has powerfully met the needs of various communities through healthy church bodies around the world. This church body needs you, and you need this church body. Jesus came not to be served but to serve others. Let us look to our Savior and be challenged and encouraged. Being a good steward of your gifts is a way in which God changes all of us into the people He designed us to be.
Bad service can ruin an entire meal, but good service can make even the worst meal an enjoyable evening. You may still be hungry, but you laughed, let down your guard and connected with a real person. In a healthy church we see a bunch of sinners equipped by God to serve one another with various graces. The church is the vehicle in which God blesses His people. As we serve, we get to be part of Gods plan. When one of us is missing, there is a you shaped hole in our body. I encourage you to spend some time in prayer asking God how He desires you to be serving others and how to experience Him in that service.