Serving Effectively

What if, with all sincerity, you wanted to serve your country and decided to join the military? You had stellar ideas to help your country and your enthusiasm was off the charts.  You approach your commander the first day to lay out your plans and ideas and ask for his nod. You can only imagine how well that would go over! You would find out very quickly that if you want to be effective, you would first need to understand that the orders come from above. You may have great ideas, but you must realize that there is already a plan in place.

Many of us are very enthusiastic to serve the Lord. We want to use our gifts for his glory. We have great ideas and we genuinely want to be effective. So, we may start brainstorming and dreaming on our own. We may come up with great ideas and then say, "God bless this" without first asking Him what His ideas might be.

It's important to recognize that God really does have a Plan of Action. He absolutely wants us to be effective for Him, but the first thing we must learn to do is come under His Vision.

To SERVE simply means 'to be a servant' (Merriam-Webster). If you want to serve Christ, you must become a servant of Christ. And when we fully come under His command, we will find that we ARE the most effective and our gifts and talents can be used to the FULLEST.

"...understand what the Lord wants you to do."

 Ephesians‬ ‭5:17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

http://bible.com/116/eph.5.17.nlt