To say they served the Lord is equivalent to saying they were committed to a life of active worship of Him. It doesn't suit the modern self-image, but we were made to serve.
Most people in this world are workers serving a business owner. The owner must, in his place, serve the public. Even the highest authorities in government are ministers, which means servants. We serve one another in homes, in churches, and in countless other human relationships.
But the most fundamental aspect of our being is spiritual, and that has to do with serving God. The Lord is served when people come together to sing his praises, pray, proclaim His Word, or carry out the ordinances commanded in the Bible.
God is also served when lives are lived in obedience to Him according to the Word of God. If serving God does not form the underpinnings of daily life, the rest of one's worship activities are proven to be just formal religion, insincere, and unacceptable to God. There is good reason for the call to practise what you preach.
There are only two essential kinds of lives: those who serve the one true God, and those who don't. The prevailing message being preached in the world around us is the gospel of serving self. No matter how this is presented, it is diametrically opposed to serving the Lord. It cannot be adapted to true Christianity.
Sadly, most people today do not realize its true character as being central to a fundamentally different kind of worship life. The father of self-service, self-centredness, and self-worship is the sinister enemy of human souls we know as Satan. He is the one who proposed the new worship order based on self-service to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
What is not understood by the self-centred world today is that every self-centred act renders honour to the one who invented it all, Satan. The very sinful acts that refuse to acknowledge the rights of God are acts of service to Satan and are in effect the liturgy of hell.
What is also not understood by most people is that this self-serving life, while posing as a life of liberty, is actually a life of bondage and enslavement.
"Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." (John 8:34)
There is only one person who can help us get free from the service of sin.
"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (John 8:36)
Ian Kurylyk is pastor at Summerside Fundamental Baptist Church.
