How Your Identity Determines Your Activity

Something I've been thinking about lately is serving. The fact that I found this video is rather timely, actually (huh, funny how God works that way, isn't it?). Given what I do for the church, I often feel like I'm serving more than my fellow brothers and sisters. If I don't see it, than other people must not be serving. Well, here comes the big ole Gibbs-style smack upside the head: Tiffany isn't in charge of the universe. Just because I don't see a fellow Christian brother or sister serving the church, doesn't mean that they aren't. Only God sees and knows everything. Just like I can't know a person's heart if they don't lay it bare, I can't know where a person is serving unless I see it.

Which then leads me to this question (pertaining a bit more to this video): Why do I serve? Why does anyone serve? What is the motivation for doing the things that we do to serve the church? I love how Mark Driscoll puts it in this clip: "Through the work of God, the grace of Jesus and the love of the Father we receive an identity. Out of that identity there is activity. Not so that God would love us, but because he already has (emphasis mine)." Unfortunately, this may not be the answer for a lot of people. Christians serve for a variety of reasons: it's performance-based; if I do this, than God will love me. They serve because they feel like they have to; "If I don't take care of it, nobody else will. The last main one, I think, is that they serve to cover up past hurts. You don't want to deal with the pain and so if you just keep doing, doing, doing, you don't have to think about the things that are gnawing at your soul.

I'm the first to admit, I'm guilty of every single one of these. I have served countless times with the wrong motivations. But guess what? Motivation is everything! Because God loves me, I serve. Sure, love and acceptance from our fellow man are both wonderful things, but those shouldn't be the reason that I serve. When that becomes our motivation, it is so easy to burn out. To feel like you're just going through the motions.

When you serve to escape the pain, all you're really doing is making it worse. You're not allowing God to meet you where you're at to let him heal you. Serving does not allow you to truly "forget" those things you're running from. When we don't face the pain, it leaves scars over our hearts and those scars inhibit us from experiencing intimacy with God.

But when our motivation to serve becomes an outworking of our identity in Christ, it all comes together and makes sense! There is no longer any burn out because God gives me the strength I need for the day to do the things He has called me to do. I am free to glorify Him through my acts of service because there is nothing holding me back from giving Him my all!

A friend wrote this verse in a thank you card today and I can't begin to tell you how timely it was. Again, it's amazing how God works that way!

Galatians 6:9 "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."