11.Sep.2009 The Pathway to Your Place is Hard Work
Final Installment of the “Series on Serving.”
Genesis 12:1 (NLT):
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.
For the last few weeks, we have been talking about Service. Service leads to Sacrifice. When you choose to move into a place of service, you are required to sacrifice. And Sacrifice is Hard Work. Hard Work the third factor in the realm of Serving. Serving is Hard Work.
What makes Serving such Hard Work? It is the fact that God requires something of you. You see, when someone enters the church, they come in broken and hurting. The first duration of time they spend in the church is filled with a sort of one-way relationship. God works timelessly to heal the broken heart, to surround this person with a strong covering of pastors and friends to help him on his path, and to get him back on his feet and ready to do life. However, that kind of Christianity only lasts for a little while. God then requires us to give up something in order to continue maturing. Suddenly. the relationship is two-ways. We give something up for Him; He continues to grow us.
Abraham is the perfect example of this process. In Genesis 12:1, you see God calling Abraham. It is a well known story among Christians. Abraham is living large under the protection and prosperity of his father when, one day, God calls to Him. He asks Abrahm to leave three specific things: His Country, his Relationshps, and his Prosperity.
First is his Country or, to be more precise, his Comfort Zone. In order to serve God, he needed to leave his comfort zone. It hurts to leave one’s comfort zone. It is hard work to consciously leave comfort to move into pain that would produce growth.
Secondly, Abraham had to leave his Relationships. This represents our friends and/or anything else that would hold us back. When a Christian reaches that point where one-way relationships with God become a two-way that requires service, sacrifice, and hard work, people begin to talk. Friends questions what this change is all about. Fellow Christians will even begin to question and judge what is happening. It will feel like you are going against everything your social relations are suggesting. But that is something God asks of us: give up the relationships that are holding us back. Attitudes, habits, and patterns of thought can also hold us back. Negativity in any form can hold us back. With His strength and help, we can let go of all the things holding us back, but we have to take the first step.
Finally, Abraham was asked to give up his prosperity. God wants us to stop relying on the provision of the world and, instead, rely solely on Him. Service and sacrifice are all about allowing God to provide for us in more ways than just finances. He wants to be the one supplying all our needs whether they are physical, emotional, or spiritual. God asks that we give it all up and trust Him as we move forward into what He has for us.
Now, these three things seem quite hard to give up, and it is true that it is hard. But not trusting God and giving them up can have a worse consequence. When we resist the transition from one-way to two-way, our relationship with God grows stagnant. Soon, bad attitudes creep in, bringing bitterness and a victim mentality. Suddenly, it is all about us and what we can get. It becomes a “you owe me!” sort of walk that goes no where. But, when we lay it down and begin to live for others instead of ourselves, something extraordinary happens!
When we submit ourselves to the process of service, sacrifice, and hard work, we suddenly find ourselves on the pathway to what God wants us to be. God is all about the process! This process is a process of making! Through service, sacrifice, and hard work, God is making us into what He wants us to be! It is the answer to the questions of “Who am I?” and “What is my place?” God knows, and He wants to show us through the process and on the pathway! For Abraham, it was to make him into the patriarch of a great nation chosen to be God’s people. For us, who knows? But it will be fantastic!
