Serve him in truth with all your heart.

Truth.
1 Sam. {12:24} Only fear the LORD, and serve himin truth with all your heart: for consider how great [things]he hath done for you. {12:25} But if ye shall still dowickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.
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Serve him in truth with all your heart.
In truth.
We can't lie to God.
We can lie to ourselves. We can convince ourselves that things aren't how they really are because then we feel better. We don't feel the weight of our own sin upon us, we don't feel our need of God's grace, and in feeling no need we are less apt to seek out God. We've got everything under control, we don't need anyone rocking our boats. Life is good, life is grand, and besides it's easier to just believe this way than to believe that we need to serve God with all our heart. We have trouble serving one another so serving God surely isn't going to be easier than serving man. When we serve God with all our heart we are putting Him first. How do we put God first when we are so consumed with ourselves? Our image, our leisure, our comforts, our needs, our desires, our everything.
Do you think everyone can serve God with all their hearts?
Do you think it's possible.
Do you think there is one person on earth that can't do that, that can't serve God?
What would make it impossible to serve God?
I can't think of anything outside of not knowing He exists.
There isn't a single situation or circumstance that can keep us from serving God.
But...what about being forced to disobey or face death, torture?
All through time men/women of God have suffered to serve Him rather than disobey Him. Many have died in order to serve Him in truth with all their hearts.
There isn't a single circumstance that can keep us from serving God. We can choose not to serve him, but there is nothing that can stop us.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for-- the evidence of things not seen.
We live by our senses, our feelings.
There are those who work hard in ways I've never had to, they work for their families, children. They work till their fingers bleed, until their bodies ache beyond what I personally can comprehend. These people live all over the world and they devote themselves to others not to themselves. Remarkable people, remarkable and amazing that they could live lives that are selfless in that respect.
No matter our circumstances, our upbringing, our day to day grind, we can serve God. We can't let ourselves get caught up in the whys of our life. We can't let ourselves get all caught up in anything that would make us believe we can't serve God. Anything.
In all we do, we need to do it to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians {10:31} 'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'
1 Samuel {12:24} 'Serve Him in truth with all your heart.'
You know that small still voice inside that points out when you're doing something that isn't to the glory of God? That voice should be encouraged not told to shut up. Now that's something that is hard to do, very hard. We want it to shut up more often than not because it interferes with whatever we're doing. It depresses us. It causes us to despair of ever being able to serve God with all our heart. The voice of our conscience can be loud, it can be soft, it can be silenced, or encouraged to speak.
I read something somewhere but I can't remember where now, but it talked of accepting the voice of our conscience and every time it speaks to us remembering this...
Proverbs {3:11} 'My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: {3:12} For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son [in whom] he delighteth.'
Despise not.
despise (dî-spìz´) verb, transitivedespised, despising, despises
1. To regard with contempt or scorn2. To dislike intensely; loathe
Contempt not.Scorn not.Dislike intensely not.Loath not.
But we want to!
We want to hate the voice that speaks to us and tells us we've done wrong, or are doing wrong. We don't like how it makes us feel it shames us, makes us want to do worse at times to try and silence it, there's no telling what the voice will do to us, but if we stop despising it, it has the potential to help us grow in Christ, in knowledge in grace.
2 Peter {3:17} 'Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know [these things] before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. {3:18} But grow in grace, and [in] the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him [be] glory both now and for ever. Amen.'
We can grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord.
We have to beware, we have to despise not the chastening.
When we do wrong as we are going to do, when we fall to sin and feel the weight of it heavy upon us trying to drag us down, grab hold of the knowledge that we have been chastened, that we are feeling that chastening, that the pain we feel, the despair that seems like it doesn't want to let us go is that chastening and we have to grab hold of it, ask for forgiveness for our wrong doing whatever it is and go on, growing in grace and knowledge. We can't be weary of the correction, the Lord loves us and He will correct us and like a father with a child, the child can resent the correction- it's normal in a lot of ways to resent the correction because it makes us feel so many negative things about ourselves- we have to throw off the resentment and realize that the chastening is for our own good. God loves us. He chastens us. We need to learn and grow from it. Even children with their parents can grow from their parents chastening, it is possible. So often we don't think our children learn anything from our chastening, but they are. We can learn from the Lord's chastening.
Serve him in truth with all your heart.
We need to do this. We can do this by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever. Amen.