God Shaped You for Service
By Rick Warren
“God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.” Ephesians 2:10 (NCV)
God shaped you to serve him.
The Bible says, “God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing” (Ephesians 2:10 NCV).
Before you were even born, God decided what contribution he wanted you to make with your life. God didn’t put you on this planet just to take up space. No! He put you here to serve him by serving others.
And nobody else can be you. If you don’t serve God the way he intended for you to serve him, then the world misses out.
Another name for “good works” is “ministry.” Any time you use your talents and abilities to help somebody else, you are ministering to them. The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:10, “God has given each of you some special abilities; be sure to use them to help each other, passing on to others God’s many kinds of blessings” (TLB).
The talents that you have are not for your benefit. God gave you your talents for the benefit of other people. Nobody has it all together; God wired the universe so that we would need each other.
God wants you to practice here on Earth what you’ll be doing in heaven. In heaven, you’re going to love God and love others, so he wants you to practice now.
You’re also going to grow spiritually and serve God in heaven, so he wants you to practice that on Earth too. Since it’s impossible to serve God directly on Earth, here you serve him by serving other people. In fact, God says that any time you help somebody else, it’s like you’re doing it for him.
You serve God when you serve others.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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