SERVING CHRIST

“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor” (John 12:26 NKJV).

The idea here is that the greatest service of all is that of serving the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are two important things about serving the Lord Jesus: the requirement for serving and the reward for serving. Note also that each is preceded by the words, “If anyone serve Me.”

Requirement for serving: “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me.” This requirement for serving may seem like a simple one, but the fulfillment may not be easy since it involves at least three things. First, it involves steadfastness. “Follow” here means persistency. To follow the Lord Jesus, we must be faithful. It is not necessary to be famous to serve Christ, but it is necessary to be faithful. Second, in involves separation. We will have to separate ourselves from the things of this world to follow the Lord. Indeed, we will have to separate ourselves from many people, practices, philosophies, and places in order to follow Him. Third, it involves submission. To follow the Lord means we go where He goes, not necessarily where you want to go. To serve Him means we submit to His will. We do what He wants us to do, otherwise it is not service.

Reward for serving: “If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” Here we have the usual case regarding God’s promises - note that the requirement is stated before the reward. Man, on the other hand like the rewards first. However, if we want rewards, we need to give priority attention to the requirements. The reward here is honor from God. This is the greatest reward of all. When God honors someone, that honor will not be disappointing but will be delightful and will last for eternity. One of the problems with folks today is that they are more interested in the honors given by man than in the honors given by God. Folks will often sell their soul to gain the honors from the world. Yet such honors pale into insignificance compared to God’s honor. And God’s honors do not corrupt like man’s honors do.

(Adapted from Butler’s Daily Bible Reading 2)

Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be The Glory)

Quotation of the Week

“He who forgets himself in the service of God may be sure that God will not forget him!”

Anonymous

Word Study

False witness

In Matt. 15:19 we read, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (NKJV).

“False witness” is the Greek word pseudomarturía (ψευδομαρτυρία = psyoo-dom-ar-too-ree'-ah). It is made up of two words: “pseudes” which means false, and “marturia” which means witness. The word means false witness or false testimony. Thus, it refers to one who deliberately gives false testimony or commits perjury. In classical literature this word appears primarily in a legal context and is translated “perjury” or “false witness.” The word also carries the same meaning in the Septuagint. In the New Testament, its use in Matt. 26:59 continues the legal sense of false testimony. Those who desired to see the Lord Jesus executed deliberately and eagerly sought out false testimony that could be used to build a case against Him. Here in Matt. 15:19, it speaks of “false witness” as one of the evils coming out of the human heart that defiles an individual.

Did You Know…

Besides being priests, the Levites differed from the other tribes in that they did not receive a share of the land (Deut. 18:1-2).

Bible Quiz

After things went from bad to worse, what did Job’s wife encouraged him to do?

**Answer to last week’s Bible Quiz: What Old Testament example does the Book of James give of how true faith is demonstrated by works? Rahab and the spies (Jam. 2:25).

Prophecies Fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ

The Seed of Isaac (Gen. 17:19; 21:12; Rom. 9:7)

"Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him” (Gen. 17:19 NJKV).

Here in this verse, God repeats His promise and names the child who will come from Abraham and Sarah. The Abrahamic covenant included not only personal (Isaac and land of Canaan) and national (Israel) promises to Abraham but also contained the universal promise of eternal salvation to all mankind through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a direct descendant of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah. Thus, the promise “I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his descendants after him” indicates that the Promised Seed, the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ would come through the line of Isaac rather than Ishmael. Therefore, it is God giving Abraham more information concerning the Promised Seed of Gen. 3:15 who would defeat sin and Satan.

Did You Know – Christian History

David Nasmith was born in March 1799 in Glasgow, Scotland. He was the founder of the City Mission Movement in the UK, the US and in Europe.

Nasmith’s heart was broken as he looked around his native Glasgow; it was not industrial wealth he saw, but spiritual poverty. The churches of Glasgow sat right in the middle of the poorest neighborhoods, but had little or no impact. However, Nasmith was no idle talker. Since the age of fourteen, he had been trying to do something about the problem; he began distributing Bibles to people who were too poor to buy their own. And in 1824, he took another shot at the problem by founding a “Young Men’s Society for Religious Improvement.” This only led him to picture an even bigger assault on ignorance and sin.

On January 1, 1826 Nasmith opened the Protestant world’s first city mission in Glasgow, Scotland. His idea was to get every Christian agency possible united behind the work; in fact, he pioneered this kind of parachurch effort. This was the first parachurch agency in the world that aimed at taking the gospel to all of the citizens in its area of operation. Nasmith’s organization didn’t just preach at people. Sure, it handed out gospel literature and held services. But it also got medical care to the poor and provided public health services that governments did not yet offer. The mission workers opened schools, visited prisoners and stood in court with those who ran into trouble with the law.

Lacking confidence in his business and clerical skills, Nasmith prayed deeply for guidance. When he became ill, he resigned the Glasgow work. However, this freed him to travel widely and organize similar missions in other cities. Nasmith’s idea appealed to Christians around the world. City missions sprang up in diverse places. Nasmith himself founded several in Britain, France, Ireland, and the USA.

Thirteen years after he made his great innovation, David Nasmith died. He was just forty years old, but had become a devout Christian with endless passion for founding missions. In fact, in his short life he founded over 60 Christian City Missions and agencies, including the YMCA. He died in poverty, having foregone business success for the sake of Christ’s kingdom. Family, friends and mission societies raised close to £3,000 to support his wife and children. Nasmith left a rich legacy that now amounts to hundreds of city missions worldwide.

A Little Humor

A little girl pointed to the Bible on the mantle in her home that was never opened, and said to her mother, “Whose book is that?” Her mother quite startled by her daughter’s question replied, “Why honey, don’t you know? That is God’s book!” The child demonstrating that she had a very practical mind said, “Don’t you think that we had better give it back to Him? No one around here ever reads it.”

Thought Provoking Church Sign

“The Key to heaven was hung on a nail!”