The Joy in Service

 

 

There is Joy in service. Charles Spurgeon once said, “I cannot be happy unless I am doing something for God.” We’ve heard the text “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” A healthy tree is a fruit-bearing tree, and the only happy tree is a healthy tree. A healthy tree is a tree that does what a tree ought to do, which is bear fruit, and the same thing is true of a Christian. If you are healthy you will bear fruit; the fruit of good works.

A psychologist at Stanford University tried to show that real joy only comes when we are productive in our lives, or, bearing fruit. This researcher hired a man who was a logger by profession. He said, “I will pay you double what you get paid in the logging camp if you will simply take the blunt end of this ax and just pound this log all day. You never have to cut one piece of wood. Just take the end that is blunt and hit it as hard as you can, just as you would if you were logging, and you will get double the money you’ve been making. The man worked for half a day and he quit. The psychologist asked him: “Why did you quit?” The logger said, “Because every time I move an ax I have to see the chips fly. If I don’t see the chips fly it’s no fun.”

St. Paul writes, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Here in a tiny capsule is the answer to the questions of who we are and why we are here, “We are God’s workmanship” and we were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Deep in our hearts we know this is true. There are pleasures we can engage in that give us a temporary high, but the pleasure is fleeting and afterward all we feel is emptiness. But when we do something good, something noble and something sacrificial for someone else or for Christ, we have a good feeling that does not leave us. 

Go with God,

Pastor Qualley