I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls . . . —2 Corinthians 12:15

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . .—Matthew 20:28

Jesus also said, “Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). Paul’s idea of service was the same as our Lord’s— “. . . ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people. But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a “doormat” for others— called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, “I know how to be abased . . .” (Philippians 4:12). Paul’s idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul’s service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.
Paul’s understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man . . .” (1 Timothy 1:13). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.

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Journal DJR
Good morning Lord,
Today’s music catches part of the written message very well … Do it anyway. Even when things aren’t working out the way we think they should. But it leaves the possibility that we are to grit our teeth and hang in there. This is the human way of serving people and we see many folks with good hearts doing just that. Oswald and Paul have a different perspective which changes everything. Dont just serve people … Serve God. And of course serving God will entail serving people, since it is the second commandment.

The difference in the core motivation will show up in how tired you get from your serving and how ready to go again you are upon waking.   Serving me from gratitude and love will energize you.  Serving people with grit and determination because you believe that it’s the right thing to do … will always leave you drained.

Be still, and know that I am God . . . —Psalm 46:10

She has done a good work for Me —Mark 14:6

If what we call love doesn’t take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.

Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I’m not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things— things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? “She has done a good work for Me.”

There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. “. . . but perfect love casts out fear . . .” once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, “Am I of any use?” and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.

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Journal DJR
Good morning, Lord.
This is a good lesson for me … to just do it … sometimes just do a thing, just for love, regardless of the bottom line or functionality or anything else. When we disconnect ourselves from the context of judging our actions by their functionality or the end results … we become free to love, free to do lavish and unreasonable things, like the lady smashing the perfume jar and washing Jesus feet. So help me Lord, to do something outrageous today. Outrageous for love, not just plain old outrageous.

It is a higher road you are talking about. You know that those who walk that road will be misunderstood and criticized.

It seems that it goes with the territory … but in that territory, the criticism shrinks to minor status relative to the love which covers it all.

Just be sure that your connection and communication with Me is strong and secure. If you wander off on your own and do outrageous things, the pain can hurt real bad. But even then, there will be lessons of value and of course I’ll be standing right there waiting for you to wake up and reconnect.

You know me well. I love you.

Arise, let us go from here —John 14:31

Arise from the dead . . .—Ephesians 5:14

Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, “Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard—just do what needs to be done!” That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, “Get up and get going,” suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, “Arise from the dead . . . .” When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to “arise from the dead” and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life—He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, “Arise from the dead . . . ,” we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.

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Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord, We hear the phrase, No Pain, No Gain, in secular society, especially in Sports and Business. But it seems to contain some truth spiritually as well. It seems that when we struggle to overcome, we become owners of a truth that cannot happen just with academic study. But there remains the question of today … Was it just our struggle on our own initiative? … or were we struggling for you? On one level, it may not matter. The lessons gained from experience and struggle are in a different class than those learned academically … whether they were of your inspiration or our own.

It is in the process of your life that we connect and you get to know me and trust me. So those who “play it safe” and never step out and risk will miss out on some of what could have been. So do your best hear my inspiration and then step out in your best effort at obedience. Of course you will miss sometimes. It’s the way to learn. Just keep coming and remember to keep the focus on our relationship. I will always be there for you.

Proverbs 14:4
New Living Translation (NLT)
4 Without oxen a stable stays clean,
but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.

So we dont want a “clean stable” because it leads to a small harvest. Of course our parents and our leaders are always pushing us to clean rooms and clean paperwork and clean lives. Nothing wrong with clean but it’s better as an outcome than as an objective.

True, if you keep “Connection with me” as the objective, the messes and misses of your life will work out and you will see them become the building blocks of what we are building together.

None of us lives to himself . . . —Romans 14:7

Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark. . .”— pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.

After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.

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Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord, The part about not talking to people when we are in the darkness runs against some other advice and my tendencies. Usually I think that “talking it out with my brother” is the way out of darkness ??

There is value in fellowship and a time for that type of talking. But you run the risk of pooling ignorance and blending human pain with human wisdom and missing what I am trying to teach. There are times when you and me alone is the only way to get the best.

How do we know? When it’s time for fellowship and when it’s time for you alone.

Focus on connection with me and you will know.

Samuel answered, ’Speak, for Your servant hears’ —1 Samuel 3:10

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You —Isaiah 26:3