Why I do what I do

Why do I want to serve, what compels me? Do I feel I have to serve God? Do I do it to try to earn something with God?

Robert S. McGee writes:

What a waste to attempt to change behavior without truly understanding the driving needs that cause such behavior! Yet millions of people spend a lifetime searching for love, acceptance, and success without understanding the need that compels them. We must understand that this hunger for self-worth is God-given and can only be satisfied by Him. Our value is not dependent on our ability to earn the fickle acceptance of people, but rather, its true source is the love and acceptance of God. He created us. He alone knows how to fulfill all of our needs.

All believers have the perfect basis for a proper sense of identity or a good self-concept, one dependent on who they are in Christ and, please note, one dependent on the value God places on their lives rather than on the value they or others may place on their lives. Whose opinion is the most important? Yours and mine, or God’s? Do we properly grasp how foolish it is to live our lives for the opinions of man?

—ABCs for Christian Growth

14 For the love of Christ controls us, (or compels us) since we have concluded this, that Christ died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised. 16 So then from now on we acknowledge no one from an outward human point of view. Even though we have known Christ from such a human point of view, now we do not know him in that way any longer. 17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away — look, what is new has come!18 And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation.

2 Cor 5:14-19 (NET1)

I know that I am saved by grace by faith and not by my works, 

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.

Eph 2:8-10 (NET1)

Because of God's love for me and praying for His burdens to become my burdens, I want to serve and help others. We are to love one another, this is the greatest commandment. We can do all things but if we don't have love, it's worth nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit.

1 Cor 13:3 (NET1)

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love

1 Cor 13:13 (NET1)

So love is the driving force behind what I do. Love for others, love for God number 1, and to share His love with others. To share the hope that I have in Christ that they also may have the assurance of eternal rest with Him. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, may we, may I be the light that shines in the darkness. Light dispels darkness and brings about hope and new beginnings. May God be that new beginning, for in Him all things begin and end. Without Him, what hope do we have? I leave that with you.