A Life of Serving God

Thomas Manton wrote “The true value of life is by service to God.  It is not who lives most plentifully, but who lives most serviceably to God’s glory. All our care in the world should be to serve  God in our generation, to be an instrument to serve his pleasure.”  In other words, we discover life to its fullest while we are serving our Lord.  Satisfaction is never experienced when we are pursuing our own self-centered purposes, but when our great aim in life is to bring God the most glory.  The particular service we are called to is determined by God’s providence.  God is our potter; He decides what will be our lot in life.  God called Moses to a specific work, and prepared him for it throughout the first forty years of his life.  Every Christian is appointed and fitted by God to be an instrument to do what pleases Him.  “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).  The Lord not only prepares us for good works, but the good works are sovereignly appointed by Him as well.  That just takes your breath away!  We can grasp and appreciate the utter magnificence of such biblical statements only by faith—faith that comes to us as a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8).