Do you serve the Lord with gladness? Go and show the world that serving the Lord is delightful and joyful!
Join an outreach team to share the Gospel while hand-delivering and custom-fitting wheelchairs to people in less-resourced countries. Learn more here:
https://joniandfriends.org/wheels-for-the-world/volunteer-information/
SHAUNA: This is Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Listen in as Joni explains why she loves serving the Lord.
JONI: More specifically, I enjoy serving the Lord with gladness. And did you know that that is a command? In Psalm 100, God’s Word says, “Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with singing.” Like, that’s one sentence. Serve the Lord with gladness and with a song. And that’s something I can do. And I love it that the people around me serve God in the same way. Like the girls who get me up in the morning.
It is not the easiest routine, getting me ready to sit up in my wheelchair. It involves a bed bath, exercises, toileting routines, leg bags, straps, corsets, getting me dressed; so much more. And my friends all know that when they help me, they are really serving God; I tell them that they are ministering to me, the least of the brethren. And so often after I’m up and we part company for the day, we will end with a song.
I remember there was one woman, however, that, well, how can I say, she did not serve the Lord with gladness. To her, getting me up in the morning was her chance to unload. And nothing I said was able to cheer her up. Yes, she was helping; yes, she was serving; yes, she was sitting me up in my wheelchair; but her sullen spirit always made the morning [I don’t know] just a little harder than most mornings. Finally, I had to tell her after she had been helping me for a few weeks. I told her, “You know what? This just isn’t a good fit.” It’s not working. Being a quadriplegic makes it hard enough getting up in the morning, without starting the day on a downer.
But to serve the Lord with gladness, ah, now there’s a glorious occupation. Those who do not serve God with a glad heart cancel out all the benefits that their service could have won them. Charles Spurgeon put it this way. He said:
“Those who serve God with a sad countenance, because they do what is unpleasant to them, are not serving him at all; they bring the form of homage, but the life is absent. Our God requires no slaves to grace his throne; he is the Lord of the empire of love and would have his servants dressed in joy. The angels of God serve him with songs, not with groans; a murmur or a sigh – that would be a mutiny in their ranks. That obedience which is not voluntary is disobedience, for the Lord looks at the heart, and if he sees that we serve him from force, and not because we love him, he will reject our offering. Service coupled with cheerfulness is heart-service, and therefore true. Take away joyful willingness from the Christian, and you have removed the test of his sincerity.”
Wow. Spurgeon continues on and he says that “Cheerfulness is the support of our strength; in the joy of the Lord are we strong. Gladness is to our service what oil is to the wheels of a carriage. Without oil the axle soon grows hot, and accidents occur; and if there be not a holy cheerfulness to oil our wheels, our spirits will be clogged with weariness.”
Well, I tell you what, Spurgeon’s got it right there. So, let me ask, do you serve the Lord with gladness? Let’s show to the people of the world, who think our obedience to God is only a slavery; let’s show them that serving him is to us a delight and a joy! Let our gladness prove that, yes, we serve a good and glad master.
SHAUNA: And listening friend, if you know someone who serves God cheerfully, then point them to joniradio.org where they can hear this program and so many more. And finally, thank you for confirming just how wonderful God is by your happy attitude when you serve the Lord!
© Joni and Friends