Apostle Paul served God in the midst of persecution. He preached in places where they beat him up, stoned him and he was dragged outside of the city. God rewarded him with more than two-thirds of the New Testament (Acts 14:19).
Acceptable Service to God
If you knew that angels would visit your canteen, how would you serve them? If you had angels as students in your lecture, how will you teach them? If angels bring their car to your mechanic workshop, will you steal parts from their car? It is because we have put the responsibility for serving God well on the shoulders of pastors alone, that we forget that all of us are SERVANTS OF GOD! As a barber, you are a servant of God. As a mechanic, you are a servant of God. If all Nigerians will see themselves as servants of God in their professions, Nigeria will be like heaven today.
“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you” (Exodus 23:25 NKJV)
Note that I am talking about genuine and faithful service. And not just any kind of service. And to do justice to this subject, we have to look at God’s word as our main basis. I make bold to say today that you can never serve God and not be rewarded. If He does not reward you, you didn’t serve Him faithfully.
We are going to use a couple of people in the scriptures as case studies. We will look at what they did and what their rewards were.
The Blessings of Faithful Service
No one serves God faithfully and ends up regretting it. There are rewards for faithful kingdom services.
- Abraham served God in so many ways. He obeyed God to leave his family and relocate to another country (Genesis 12-1); he obeyed God to sacrifice his son (Genesis 26); he obeyed God by training his children (Genesis 18:18). He circumcised his whole house. His life was an epitome of kingdom service. And then God poured generational blessings on him.
- Anna, the prophetess, served God with fastings and prayers for decades (Luke 2: 36-37). God rewarded her by allowing her to see baby Jesus.
- Zechariah, the father of John, served God as a priest for decades, even without a child (Luke 1). By the time God would respond, He didn’t just give him any kind of child. God gave him the greatest man among those born of women (Matthew 11:11).
- Moses served God so diligently. He was called at 80 to abandon his business and go to Egypt. He obeyed God and became God’s choice leader (Exodus 2 and 3). By the time God was done, Moses was rewarded with the Bible’s first five books.
- David served God so faithfully. He served God in Saul’s palace. He served God by honouring the anointing on Saul’s life. By the time God was done, David became the progenitor of the Lord Jesus.
- Joshua and Caleb served God under Moses so faithfully. God judged all the tribes of Israel and made all their adults to perish in the wilderness, but rewarded only Joshua and Caleb with the promised land (Joshua 14: 9-10).
Joseph served God faithfully and God set him up as a prime minister. It was the same for Daniel.
Apostle Paul served God in the midst of persecution. He preached in places where they beat him up, stoned him and he was dragged outside of the city. God rewarded him with more than two-thirds of the New Testament (Acts 14:19).
You will notice from the above cases that God rewards people differently. You cannot enforce your choice of reward on God. What he looks out for is faithfulness! But basically, these are some of the potential blessings in serving God
Ayo Akerele, a leadership and system development strategist, and minister of the word, writes from Canada and can be reached through [email protected].
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