One of my favorite Scriptures is found in
last chapter of Joshua, "And if it seems evil to you to serve LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . But as for me and my house, we will serve LORD" (Joshua 24:15) I purposefully left part of this verse out to get to heart of matter. Joshua was giving Israelites a speech prior to their entering Promised Land. He was telling them that they could choose to serve either gods of people who dwell in land, or they could choose to serve Lord. Just like Joshua and Israelites we in America have a choice to make. Are we to serve gods of American culture – cable TV, sports, pleasure, sexual immorality, drugs, politics, gambling, drinking, money, power, prestige – or will we serve Lord.
Joshua and Israelites made correct choice, they chose to serve Lord. Unfortunately, they did not eliminate culture of people whose land they conquered. The people and culture, little by little, invaded lives and hearts of Israelite people. Soon they were up to their eyeballs in "serving" gods of people whom they conquered. Are we, as Christians in America today, falling to same fate that they did?
I would like to look at three areas where we need to be steadfast in our serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Those areas are – our lives, our talents and our finances.
Serving Christ With Our Lives
First, and foremost, we need to serve Christ with our lives. Now you may say, "I am a Christian. Of course I am serving Christ with my life." But are you really? What does it mean to serve Christ with our lives?
I just imagine that all too often typical Christian feels that as long as he/she attends church on Sunday morning and then tries to live a decent life rest of time that they are living a life serving Christ. But this is not so! Serving Christ demands much more than this.
Serving Christ with our lives means that we will be faithful to worship services as often as it is possible for us to attend. That means that attending worship service, Sunday School, mid-week Bible Study and so forth is our first priority. Not that we will attend if something else doesn't comes up. We should plant to attend all of these occasions to worship and praise God. The only time that we should miss one of these is when we simply cannot attend!
Serving Christ with our lives means that we take Him to work with us every day. I cannot imagine having a job that I could not talk about Christ with others. I realize that often we must be selective with whom we speak of Christ for many will simply not accept any instruction in becoming a Christian. However, we should always be looking for an opportunity to tell our fellow workers about Jesus and what He means to us. Then there are those that we work with that are Christians as well. It is really great to be able to talk about Christ with those we work with and to share with each other. I am not talking about ignoring our work duties. It is important that we give our employers a good days work for money we receive. But there are always times and opportunities to witness for Christ.
It is also important to have Christ on our minds as we work. The day seems to go so much better when I can think about Christ and what He has done for me as I go about many tasks I must accomplish. I have a job where I must make decisions each day which affect people. To ask for God's guidance and trust in Him makes those decisions easier to make and uphold.
What about serving Christ during those times which are recreation in nature. I certainly do not mean to imply that when one serves Christ that he/she cannot attend sporting events, play golf, go to movies, watch TV or any number of other recreational activities. However, how we approach those activities does have an affect on our serving Christ. Do we put those things first? If so, then we are not doing right thing. Are we selective when we choose things we want to do for fun? Again, we must be selective if we are to serve Christ with our lives. We should not watch most of filth on TV and movies. Most of it is nothing but sex and violence. Be selective. Don't watch filth.
