Day29: Accepting Your Assignment

 Accepting Your Assignment

It is God himself who has made us what 

we are and given us new lives 

from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago 

he planned that we should spend 

these lives in helping others.

Ephesians 2:10 (LB)

I glorified you on earth by completing down 

to the last detail what you assigned me to do.

John 17:4 (Msg)

You were put on earth to make a contribution.

You weren’t created just to consume resources—to eat, breathe,

and take up space. God designed you to make a difference with

your life. While many best-selling books offer advice on how to

“get” the most out of life, that’s not the reason God made you.

You were created to add to life on earth, not just take from it.

God wants you to give something back. This is God’s fourth

purpose for your life, and it is called your “ministry,” or service.

The Bible gives us the details.

You were created to serve God. The Bible says, “[God] has

created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for

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us to do.” 1 These “good deeds” are your service. Whenever you

serve others in any way, you are actually serving God2 and

fulfilling one of your purposes. In the next two chapters you will

see how God has carefully shaped you for this purpose. What God

told Jeremiah is also true for you: “Before I made you in your

mother’s womb, I chose you. Before you were born, I set you apart for

a special work.” 3 You were placed on this planet for a special

assignment.

You were saved to serve God. The Bible says, “It is he who

saved us and chose us for his holy work, not because we deserved it

but because that was his plan.” 4 God redeemed you so you could

do his “holy work.” You’re not saved by service, but you are

saved for service. In God’s kingdom, you have a place, a purpose,

a role, and a function to fulfill. This gives your life great

significance and value. 

It cost Jesus his own life to purchase your salvation. The Bible

reminds us, “God paid a great price for you. So use your body to

honor God.” 5 We don’t serve God out of guilt or fear or even

duty, but out of joy, and deep gratitude for what he’s done for us.

We owe him our lives. Through salvation our past has been

forgiven, our present is given meaning, and our future is secured.

In light of these incredible benefits Paul concluded, “Because of

God’s great mercy . . . Offer yourselves as a living

sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service.” 6

The apostle John taught that our loving

service to others shows that we are truly saved.

He said, “Our love for each other proves that we

have gone from death to life.” 7 If I have no love

for others, no desire to serve others, and I’m only concerned

about my needs, I should question whether Christ is really in my

life. A saved heart is one that wants to serve.

Another term for serving God that’s misunderstood by most

people is the word ministry. When most people hear “ministry,”

they think of pastors, priests, and professional clergy, but God says

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DAY TWENTY-NINE:

ACCEPTING

YOUR

ASSIGNMENT

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every member of his family is a minister. In the Bible, the words

servant and minister are synonyms, as are service and ministry. If

you are a Christian, you are a minister, and when you’re serving,

you’re ministering.

When Peter’s sick mother-in-law was healed by Jesus, she

instantly “stood up and began to serve Jesus,” 8 using her new gift of

health. This is what we’re to do. We are healed to help others. We

are blessed to be a blessing. We are

saved to serve, not to sit around

and wait for heaven.

Have you ever wondered why

God doesn’t just immediately take

us to heaven the moment we accept

his grace? Why does he leave us in a

fallen world? He leaves us here to

fulfill his purposes. Once you are

saved, God intends to use you for his goals. God has a ministry

for you in his church and a mission for you in the world.

You are called to serve God. Growing up, you may have

thought that being “called” by God was something only

missionaries, pastors, nuns, and other “full-time” church workers

experienced, but the Bible says every Christian is called to

service.9 Your call to salvation included your call to service. They

are the same. Regardless of your job or career, you are called to

full-time Christian service. A “non-serving Christian” is a

contradiction in terms.

The Bible says, “He saved us and called us to be his own people,

not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose.” 10

Peter adds, “You were chosen to tell about the excellent qualities of

God, who called you.” 11 Anytime you use your God-given abilities

to help others, you are fulfilling your calling.

The Bible says, “Now you belong to him . . . in order that we

might be useful in the service of God.” 12 How much of the time are

you being useful in the service of God? In some churches in

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If I have no love for others, 

no desire to serve others, 

I should question whether

Christ is really in my life.

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China, they welcome new believers by saying “Jesus now has a

new pair of eyes to see with, new ears to listen with, new hands to

help with, and a new heart to love others with.” 

One reason why you need to be connected to a church family is

to fulfill your calling to serve other believers in practical ways. The

Bible says, “All of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you

is a separate and necessary part of it.” 13 Your service is desperately

needed in the Body of Christ—just ask any local church. Each of

us has a role to play, and every role is important. There is no small

service to God; it all matters.

Likewise, there are no insignificant ministries in the church.

Some are visible and some are behind the scenes, but all are

valuable. Small or hidden ministries often make the biggest

difference. In my home, the most important light is not the large

chandelier in our dining room but the little night light that keeps

me from stubbing my toe when I get up at night. There is no

correlation between size and significance. Every ministry

matters because we are all dependent on each other to

function.

What happens when one part of your body fails to

function? You get sick. The rest of your body suffers.

Imagine if your liver decided to start living for itself:

“I’m tired! I don’t want to serve the body anymore! I want

a year off just to be fed. I’ve got to do what’s best for me! Let

some other part take over.” What would happen? Your body

would die. Today thousands of local churches are dying because

of Christians who are unwilling to serve. They sit on the sidelines

as spectators, and the Body suffers.

You are commanded to serve God. Jesus was

unmistakable: “Your attitude must be like my own, for I, the

Messiah, did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my

life.” 14 For Christians, service is not optional, something to be

tacked onto our schedules if we can spare the time. It is the

heart of the Christian life. Jesus came “to serve” and “to

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give”—and those two verbs should define your life on earth,

too. Serving and giving sum up God’s fourth purpose for your

life. Mother Teresa once said, “Holy living consists in doing

God’s work with a smile.”

Jesus taught that spiritual maturity is never an end in itself.

Maturity is for ministry! We grow up in order to give out. It is not

enough to keep learning more and

more. We must act on what we

know and practice what we claim to

believe. Impression without

expression causes depression. Study

without service leads to spiritual

stagnation. The old comparison

between the Sea of Galilee and the

Dead Sea is still true. Galilee is a lake full of life because it takes in

water but also gives it out. In contrast, nothing lives in the Dead

Sea because, with no outflow, the lake has stagnated.

The last thing many believers need today is to go to another

Bible study. They already know far more than they are putting

into practice. What they need are serving experiences in which

they can exercise their spiritual muscles. 

Serving is the opposite of our natural inclination. Most of the

time we’re more interested in “serve us” than service. We say, “I’m

looking for a church that meets my needs and blesses me,” not

“I’m looking for a place to serve and be a blessing.” We expect

others to serve us, not vice versa. But as we mature in Christ, the

focus of our lives should increasingly shift to living a life of

service. The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, “Who’s going

to meet my needs?” and starts asking, “Whose needs can I meet?”

Do you ever ask that question?

Preparing for Eternity

At the end of your life on earth you will stand before God, and

he is going to evaluate how well you served others with your life.

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Spiritual maturity is never 

an end in itself. We grow up 

in order to give out.

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The Bible says, “Each of us will have to give a personal account to

God.” 15 Think about the implications of that. One day God will

compare how much time and energy we spent on ourselves

compared with what we invested in serving others. 

At that point, all our excuses for self-centeredness will sound

hollow: “I was too busy” or “I had my own goals” or “I was

preoccupied with working, having fun, or preparing for

retirement.” To all excuses God will respond, “Sorry, wrong

answer. I created, saved, and called you and commanded you to

live a life of service. What part did you not understand?” The

Bible warns unbelievers, “He will pour out his anger and wrath on

those who live for themselves,” 16 but for Christians it will mean a

loss of eternal rewards.

We are only fully alive when we’re helping others. Jesus said, “If

you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw

away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will

ever know what it means to really live.” 17 This truth is so important

that it is repeated five times in the Gospels. If you aren’t serving,

you’re just existing, because life is meant for ministry. God wants

you to learn to love and serve others unselfishly. 

Service and Significance

You are going to give your life for something. What will it be—

a career, a sport, a hobby, fame, wealth? None of these will have

lasting significance. Service is the pathway to real significance. It is

through ministry that we discover

the meaning of our lives. The Bible

says, “Each of us finds our meaning

and function as a part of his body.” 18

As we serve together in God’s

family, our lives take on eternal

importance. Paul said, “I want you

to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less . . .

because of what you are a part of.” 19

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Service is the pathway 

to real significance.

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God wants to use you to make a difference in his world. He

wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of

your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how

you lived.

If you’re not involved in any service or ministry, what excuse

have you been using? Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah

was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was

poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had

an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal,

Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a

widow, John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least, Peter was

impulsive and hot-tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan

woman had several failed marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular,

Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health, and Timothy was

timid. That is quite a variety of misfits, but God used each of

them in his service. He will use you, too, if you stop making

excuses.

Day Twenty-nine

Thinking about My Purpose

Point to Ponder: Service is not optional.

Verse to Remember: “For we are God’s workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God

prepared in advance for us to do.”  Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

Question to Consider: What is holding me back from

accepting God’s call to serve him?

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