Quotes about Service

But of course you can only do what you're meant to do with a baseball bat when you're playing with other people. And salvation only does what it's meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them.

The Christians would stay and nurse people. Sometimes they caught the disease and died. People were astonished. What was that about? Oh, they replied, we are followers of this man Jesus. He put his life on the line to save us. So that's what we do as well.

the human calling to worship God and reflect him into his world.

resurrection doesn't mean escaping from the world; it means mission to the world based on Jesus's lordship over the world. Already

Theology, after all, was made for the sake of the church, not the church for theology.

the work of salvation, in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely souls; (2) about the present, not simply the future; and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us.

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.

Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.

If you've ever taught a Sunday school class, led a small group, or taught a Bible study, you know there's a lot more behind these words than what appears on the surface. You know that you don't just get up before a group and teach the Word of God with power and effectiveness apart from a lot of time spent in preparation-not just preparation of the notes and the material, but preperation of your heart and life.

The apostle Paul said, "I will very gladly spend and be spent for you" (2 Corinthians 12:15 KJV). That's part of what is involved in ministering to others, whether in a synagogue, a Sunday school class, or a house full of little ones.

Our vocation and professional work is not a second class activity, something we do just to put food on the table. It is the high calling for which we were originally created. The way we serve a Creator God is by being creative with the talents and gifts He has given us.

Our vocation is not something we do for God- which would put the burden on us to perform and achieve. Instead, it is a way we participate in God's work. For God himself is engaged not only in the work of salvation, but also in the work of preserving and maintaining His creation.