{"id":316,"date":"2015-04-20T13:18:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tloah.com\/?p=316"},"modified":"2018-11-20T22:10:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T03:10:41","slug":"why-serve-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/?p=316","title":{"rendered":"Why Serve Jesus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, it is because the Holy Spirit has convicted us of sin and led us to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.\u00a0 We are convinced that God loved us and sent His Son to be our substitute, taking the wrath of God that we deserve upon Himself.\u00a0 How amazing is God\u2019s love for us!<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bible emphasizes the love of God as one of God\u2019s motives (God\u2019s glory being another) for sending Jesus to die for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

John 3:16\u00a0 \u201cFor God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten<\/span>
son . . .”<\/span><\/p>\n

I John 3:16\u00a0 \u201cHereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down<\/span>
his life for us . . .”<\/span><\/p>\n

I John 4:10\u00a0 \u201cHerein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,<\/span>
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Romans 5:8\u00a0 \u201cBut God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we<\/span>
were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”<\/span><\/p>\n

God\u2019s love did not stop at the cross.\u00a0 He loves those who believe on Jesus with the love of a father for his child (Hebrews 12:5,6) and the love of a husband for his wife (Ephesians 5:25,32).\u00a0 Believers are sons of God (I John 3:1), and the church is the bride of Christ (John 3:29; Revelation 21:9).\u00a0 His love is enduring, so that nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38,39).<\/span><\/p>\n

Our relationship with God all started because He loved us.\u00a0 If we want to effectively serve Him, our motive must be that we love Him.\u00a0 Paul said, \u201cthe love of Christ constraineth us\u201d (II Corinthians 5:17).\u00a0 While we are serving our Lord, His love keeps us in line.\u00a0 John said, \u201cwe love him, because he first loved us\u201d ( I John 4:19).\u00a0 His love for us prompts our love for Him.\u00a0 John also said that loving the Lord will keep us from loving the world (I John 2:15), will assure that we love fellow Christians (I John 4:11-12: 3:15-18; 5:1), and produce obedience to His commandments (I John 2:5; John 14:15,21, 23).<\/span><\/p>\n

Our reason and motivation for serving the Lord should be because we love Him.\u00a0 Other motivations, such as reward, peace of mind, approval of man, or fear of the Lord\u2019s chastening fall short of what our Lord desires.\u00a0 God wants us to serve Him, because we love Him.\u00a0 Our love for the Lord will grow as we learn more of His love for us.\u00a0 Therefore, the Bible must be read and studied, because it is the only source of truth concerning His love for us.\u00a0 The more we know Him, the more we love Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is possible to do many good things for Jesus, and yet fail to please Him because we were not motivated by love for Him. The church of Ephesus was known for its patience, rejection of evil, and labor for Jesus\u2019 sake.\u00a0 This is all good, but they were in danger of having their candlestick (witness, usefulness) removed.\u00a0 That was because Jesus said, \u201cI have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love\u201d (Revelation 2:2-4).<\/span><\/p>\n

May we grow in our love for Him.\u00a0 This will assure service from the correct motivation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, it is because the Holy Spirit has convicted us of sin and led us to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}