When I came across a passage in the Bible about the apostle Paul being thankful essentially for God calling him into his ministry work, the word ministry per Strong’s concordance coming from a Greek word that also is used as “service”, I knew immediately there was a powerful message. About serving. About Thanksgiving. About being thankful for serving.
We humans in our sin nature without God are self-centered, selfish, self-seeking, etc. We may think of serving as an obligation. We may think of it as a way to get attention and praise and acceptance from people. We may think of it as a way to feel good about ourselves. And so on. But when we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, and follow Jesus Christ as Lord, and when our serving is not self-centered but is about serving the Lord and serving others in His name for His glory, then we come to know the blessedness of humbling ourselves and loving and serving God with all our hearts. And we see that serving, and God calling us to serve, and God enabling us to serve, and God giving us opportunities to serve, and God giving us the resources to serve, and God giving us the opportunity to love and glorify Him in serving, this is something for which we can – and should – be indescribably THANKFUL! Thank you, God, that we get to love and serve you with every ounce of our hearts, AMEN!
“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 1:12-14 KJV