What is your motivation for serving God? Many of us serve God because we think that by being good we will not have to go through rough times. We believe that good begets good. Many of you reading will say, “no, that’s naive.” But how many of us start to berate God when something bad happens to us or a member of our family? It goes something like this. “But God I have served You, I have sacrificed to help others and so why are you allowing this to happen to me (or my child or my spouse)?” That type of response reveals your true motivation for serving the Lord. Protection against evil, trials, tribulations, sickness, financial hardship, failure in business. So, when these things do happen we start to question and lose faith. We start to think, “why bother to be good if I am not going to get good in return?” The ‘what’s in it for me?’ approach that is so prevalent in the world’s system and mindset prevails.

So, why do you think you’re so different or, should I dare say, more favoured than Job, Joseph, Moses, Abraham, David and our ultimate example Jesus? They all obeyed the Lord and they all went through suffering. You should serve the Lord and do what is right and good because that is what the Lord requires of you. Your reward will definitely come. It just may not be in the form you are expecting it or in the time you want it to happen.

Therefore, our motivation comes back to just doing good because God requires it and seeking to please Him because of your love for Him. We should be so grateful for the sacrifice Jesus made for our salvation and eternal life that if God did nothing else for us we would be satisfied. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers Him out of them all (Psa. 34:19). Just think! If you didn’t go through afflictions you would never have the opportunity to see God’s hand of deliverance and you would have no testimony of God’s faithfulness to share with others.

See every adversity as another opportunity to prove God and to be victorious!!

By the way, some of our afflictions we bring on ourselves by our own foolish decisions and then want to blame God for allowing the consequences. But that’s another story for another time.

Shalom.