Christian Service

This post is not likely to draw a lot of fan mail from the ranks of the clery, but here goes.

Thanks to Clyde Pilkington Jr for his inspiring post here.  An excerp appears below.

We would do well to discard the phrase "christian service" from the believer's lexicon. It has become too closely linked with organized events of the organized church to be used to identify Father's real work.

In the above mentioned post, Clyde beautifully contrasts Father's real work from what receives top billing in the organized church.

"True ministry is intensely personal, borne out of self-sacrifice for another. It is freely being spent (used up) in the situations of life where Father has placed us, and regardless of how you may “see” things or “feel” about the value of your personal sacrifice, it is in the silent, unrecognized giving of yourself and your daily life in the seemingly routine details of the day that you are used in HIS real ministry. It is in your regular avenue of living that your role as a “Son of God” is manifest in the real “work of God”!

I am not talking here of an occasional “act of service,” but of your daily LIVING SACRIFICE for Him in every detail and circumstance of life, being His available vessel – His channel of care and love – in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION, EVERY SINGLE DAY, day in and day out.
Your life is what true ministry is all about. It is not something that you “go and do.” It is who you are as our Father lives His life in and through you. Your daily sacrifice is what true ministry is all about. To give your life as a living sacrifice to God is a tremendous amount of hardship, care, burden, heartache, difficulty, trial and inconvenience. "

Believe that the focus of Father's work is in and through you every moment of your life and not organized events of the organized church. Rather than measuring one's self or others by participation in organized events, simply rest in the assurance that our daily life is Father's work. No pressure.  No "measuring up".  No need for motivation by guilt or fear.

Does this mean one should not participate in organized events? If one can participate without being motivated by fear or guilt or the need to measure up, have at it. If the motivation is purely the joy of opportunity and Father's Love or the need of another, by all means participate. If it does not become a substitute in your own mind for Father's real work, carry on. But recognize the danger.

One of the challenges in all of this is to realize that our flesh desires recognition. That means that participation in organized events (the recognition that inevitably results) is far more attractive to the flesh than the idea of Father working in the mundane things of our life. This is where our warfare takes place. The Spirit against the flesh and the flesh against the Spirit.

Father willing, in future posts we will take a look at what the book of Esther reveals about this struggle and the marvelous outcome.