Service You Can Enjoy

Serving the Lord with gladness. (Ps. 100:2)

Ps. 100; Deut. 8:10-14; Ps. 16:1-9; Lk. 10:17; Acts 11:23

What Is God Saying?

This Psalm equates the word ‘serve’ with ‘worship,’ which is fundamentally why we call our worship a service. To say worship service is a redundancy. Worship and service mean the same thing. Serving the Lord is coming into his presence. We are his people. He made us. In Jesus Christ, he redeemed us. We are truly his people. We did not make ourselves. Indeed, we could not redeem ourselves. Hence, we are his, in joy. David writes, "I keep the Lord ever before me ... therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices."

How Does This Apply To Us?

In the historic Park Street Church, next to the Boston Commons, I worshiped regularly during my pre-seminary days. It was their custom to have the pastor enter the sanctuary and proceed to the pulpit, reciting verses 4 and 5 of "Old One Hundredth," as it is called in Scotland. It may well be one of the best silent prayers we can offer as we wait expectantly for our services to begin.

While this is a good introduction to a service or a time of worship, it is equally valid that worship should result in service. Our service of gladness, praise, and thanksgiving can be an emotional experience, and it can be far more. It can be the threshold of service to others. The service of God should empower us to be of service to God for others. There should be gladness in both.

Pray With Me

Lord, I have so many reasons for serving You with gladness. Forgive me that I have sometimes served you as if it were a cheerless duty. To serve you is to be set free from all lesser goals. To serve you is to be glad. To serve you is life itself.

I serve you with gladness because I know that you, the Lord, are God (Ps. 100:3). No power, visible or invisible, in the heights or in the depths, in heaven or on earth, nothing that is present, nothing that is to come, can defeat your purpose or spoil your final plan for those you love.

I serve you with gladness because I know that you are good and your love is steadfast. Your love is not a vapor, unable to endure the heat of testing. You are "the same yesterday, today, and forever."

I serve you with gladness, with thankfulness for all your gifts, for your patience with my mistakes, for your encouraging grace of forgiveness. “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. (Ps. 16:6).

In Whose power I serve with confidence, to Whose glory I serve with obedience, in Whose name I serve with gladness. Amen.

Moving On In The Life of Prayer

Like worship, prayer is a service. In the silence, let our hearts become fountains of praise and gladness. Perhaps it will not be with audible singing, but our souls can and should rejoice. Out of the gladness of prayer, we move on to the gladness of service. God wants that. Be glad because you have the Lord. Then even more gladness will come when you go out to share the Lord.