There is a saying that points out that many Christians want to serve the Lord, but they want to serve in an advisory capacity. I will soon hit 42 years in this ministry thing (my parents said it wouldn’t last), and I have to say that the saying is true. Many Christians want to tell the Lord what needs to be done and then they want to tell others what to do and how to do it. There are many more Christians out there who feel they need to block the efforts being made, usually over money, forgetting that our God not only owns the cattle on a thousand hills, but He also owns the hills. Then there are also those who are just opposed to everything because it was so well done in their day that it should continue to be done that way now.

          When Christians really decide to serve the Lord, most of those feelings go away. They have to go away because those feelings are generated by Satan. Satan puts it into minds to want to run things. Satan puts it into minds to hold back on ministry because of money. Satan puts it into minds to drag up memories from the past and pretty them up so they look better now than they did then. When Christians begin to serve, God begins to control our minds and those thoughts go away.

          THAT’S NOT FAIR someone is saying right now. I SERVE THE LORD! Going to church on Sunday is not serving. When you stop to get gas for your car, you are not traveling. You are stopped and gassing up. Same thing when you go to church. You may be the liturgist or the lay leader or taking the offering or in some other way of assisting the church, and those are service related, but real service is done out there, out where the people are, out where it counts. I preach on Sunday, but what I am really doing is fueling you all up. Even for me, service is out there.

          So, if service is out there, why aren’t we all serving?

          Because it is hard. It is hard because we listen to Satan and because we listen to Satan we criticize, we obstruct and we hamper. But, real service is hard.

          Because he wanted to serve the Lord, the Apostle Peter was crucified. He was crucified upside down so no one would confuse him with Jesus. Evidently, there were those already who were elevating Peter higher than he ever wanted. His brother Andrew, also a disciple, was also crucified because he wouldn’t quit serving the Lord. He chose to be crucified with his cross at an angle so he wouldn’t be confused for Jesus. James, the brother of John, was beheaded for his service. The disciple Philip was crucified for his faith and service. The Apostle Nathanael was skinned alive and then crucified because he would not cease to teach and preach of the Lord. Thomas, the one we foolishly came to call the doubting Thomas, was put into slavery and sent to India, where he was eventually killed on an altar of his own making because he never stopped serving. Matthew, writer of the Book of Matthew and missionary to Ethiopia, was also tied to the altar in the church he started. Instead of killing him outright, he was flayed alive. The other James, sometimes referred to as James the lessor, was a dynamic servant in Jerusalem. So, he was stoned for his faithful service. The other Judas, the one who didn’t betray Christ, was a missionary to Armenia, where he was beaten to death by a crowd. And then Simon, often called Zeolotes for his zeal in service, traveled to Babylon and there brought the gospel. He, too, was beaten to death by a crowd. John, the writer who wrote John, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John and the Book of the Revelation, was the only disciple who didn’t die violently. But, for his faith, the Romans arrested him and then put him in a boiling vat of oil as his form of execution. They were stunned, and afraid, when they brought him out, injured but still alive. He was sent to the Island of Patmos as exile. While there, he wrote his five books of the Bible. By the time he was allowed to go home, he was already in his 80s. He continued to serve the Lord for another ten years before he died a ‘peaceful’ death.

          These were the eleven disciples left after Judas Iscariot committed suicide. They all refused to stop serving and they all endured horrible pain and suffering because of their faith. But somehow, I just don’t think they would have changed a thing. They knew the risks. They knew they would suffer. They knew it was hard, but that didn’t matter.

          So, before you say it will cost too much, or it wasn’t done like that before, or it should be done the way you want it done, ask yourself; am I serving the Lord, or am I serving Satan. If you are serving the Lord you will be doing all you can do to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people. And that means asking them into the Kingdom, not just asking them to church. Once you start really sharing the Gospel, the rest won’t matter as much.