One Requirement

So you served at your church yesterday?  How did you do it?  I’m not asking at what skill level you played the piano, or taught the children’s church lesson – I mean, how was your attitude and your mindset about your service?

Paul tells us in I Corinthians 4:2 that the only requirement is FAITHFULNESS. That rules out the need to be perfect, flawless, captivating or awesome.  Those are characteristics of our God – not ourselves.

What are we to do?  Just be faithful.

• Show up
• Be there on time
• Be prepared
• Be enthusiastic

Faithfulness also rules out being

• Hesitant
• Half-hearted
• Obligatory
• Cynical

When we realize how much we have been given from our Savior, we realize that we have so much to give in return.  It’s our blessing to GET to serve God in any small way – just out of the gratitude of our hearts.  If you serve, yet…

• no one sees when you miss hearing the preaching because you’re in the nursery again, cradling a crying baby so his mommy can hear the Gospel.
• You try to convey to the junior age class that God wants them to stand firm like Daniel in this next school year and you wonder if they heard a word you spoke.
• you sat alone in the service again becuase your husband was serving on security in the church parking lot on this 90+ degree day.
• no one else saw all the work you did to you prepared a meal for any visitors that might come to church so you could invite them to join your family afterwards.
• you practiced that offeratory 100 times, and still messed up on that hard part in the middle, but you had to play it because of how that song ministered to your heart during the week.

Be comforted that God sees and knows of your faithfulness – the one characteristic that he requires of us when we serve Him.  He will reward you for it, and it will be worth any small sacrifice we may have made!

Keep on serving faithfully.