Why do you do what you do? You job, volunteer projects, mission trips, cooking for your family, decorating your house, helping in VBS, —why do you do it?

Is it because you feel you have to? Is it because you think no one else will do it if you don’t? Is it because you think it will make you feel better? Is it because you think it will make someone else feel better? Is it because you think it’s the right thing to do?

You may be right. I know how you feel.

I also know that doing and serving for those reasons alone eventually causes me to feel bitter, unappreciated, taken-for-granted and resentful just to name a few. Those feelings that rear their ugly head a thousand times a week are the reason why I keep this reminder on the bathroom door. I frequently need to be reminded.

The Son of Man came not be served, but to serve. Matthew 20:28

In “My Utmost for His Highest” (February 23) Oswalt Chambers reminds me:

 The mainspring of service is not love for man, but love for Jesus Christ.

If we are devoted to the cause of humanity we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog, but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow man.

When we realize that Jesus served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, our sin, nothing we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. Colossians 3:23

That thing you do—I do—we must do it the way we would do it if God Himself had asked us to. For me, that changes everything.