Why serve Jesus?

Have you ever asked yourself why you serve Jesus? Do you do it because you feel like you have to? Do you do it because you think it’s the right thing to do? Do you do it because you think that if you do, God will bless you more?

I have found myself in each one of these situations more times than I can count and unfortunately, all of them are the wrong reasons to serve Him. As I was reading this morning I came across one simple verse that reminded me why we do what we do as Christians.

This woman rose to serve Jesus in response to being completely healed after being touched by Him. She was sick, He touched her, healed her, and THEN she rose and served Him.

I think this order is so important because usually we bypass being touched and healed by Jesus and jump straight to busying ourselves serving Him and we miss the point entirely.

The point is that we are sick and we need Jesus. We need Him to touch us and to heal us. We need to experience Him and His power and love for us. We rise and serve Him only after we have experienced His love because that’s the natural response to being so radically changed. Not the other way around.

I think Jesus is more concerned about healing us than He is about us serving Him. We (I) get so worried and caught up in wondering if I’m doing enough for God; talking about Him to enough people, witnessing the right way, saying the right thing, when He just wants to be with us. He doesn’t need help. We do. And when we make serving Him all about ourselves, then we’ve missed it.

Trust me, God can solve all the world’s problems by Himself and He’s not worried that the whole world will crumble if you don’t get your service acts together. Our service doesn’t impress Him because He can literally do whatever He wants. So why do we try so hard to earn His affection?! He already loves us infinitely without our service having anything to do with it! He just wants our hearts and to be with us so we can take a deep breath and let go of this pressure to perform.

Serving Him isn’t an obligation, but rather something we should desire to do because we want more people to know how we’ve been healed and brought out of the slimy pit.

Do you catch yourself running yourself to the ground in “service to God” and realize that you really just need to be healed? Are there days where you feel like you have nothing to offer, but all you want is to be touched by Jesus?

I feel that way, and it’s okay if you do too. God wants to heal you and wants you to know that your heart is more important to Him than any acts of service.