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Our inward motive for serving the Lord is our love for Him (Exo. 21:5; Rev. 2:4-5).
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Our serving the Lord should always proceed out from Him as the source of blessing, be through Him as the means and the power, and be unto Him for His glory (Rom. 11:36; cf. Num. 18:1).
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We need to serve the Lord with our whole being according to the counsel of God by coordinating with the members of the Body (Rom. 12:1-2, 11; Acts 13:36; 1 Cor. 12:14-22).
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We need to use the Lord's gift to build up the church by serving others with Christ and ministering Christ as grace to them (Matt. 25:27; 1 Pet. 4:10; Col. 1:7; 4:12):
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We need to serve as laboring priests of the gospel of God, saving sinners to offer them to God as acceptable sacrifices and eventually present them full-grown in Christ (Rom. 15:16; 12:1; Col. 1:28).
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We need to supply others with Christ as their spiritual food at the proper time (Matt. 24:45):
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We need to speak Christ to all kinds of people daily in season and out of season (Acts 5:42; 8:4; 2 Tim. 4:2).
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We need to desperately endeavor to build up a habit of speaking in any meeting (1 Cor. 14:26, 4-5, 12, 31).
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We need to care for people with the loving and forgiving heart of our Father God and the shepherding and seeking spirit of our Savior Christ; love is the most excellent way for us to be anything and to do anything for the building up of the Body of Christ (John 21:15-17; 1 Cor. 12:31b; 13:4-8, 13).
Morning Nourishment
Matt. 24:45 Who then is the faithful and prudent slave, whom the master has set over his household to give them food at the proper time?1 Cor. 14:31 For you can all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
In what way should we be faithful in the service?...First, in Matthew 24:45-51 we are told clearly that the Lord commissioned us to take care of His household. His household refers to the believers (Eph. 2:19), who are the church (1 Tim. 3:15). The church today is the Lord's house and also the Lord's household, what we refer to as the folks....The Lord charged us, commissioned us, to minister something to His household, that is, to the believers in the church.
According to Matthew 24:45, what we minister is food....At the proper time we have to minister food, the life supply, to the Lord's people. Do not say that others have a gift of teaching to teach you the Word of God and minister spiritual food to you but that you do not have such a gift. There is not such a thought here. All the Lord's servants received the gift for their commission. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “The Way to Practice the Lord's Present Move,” pp. 514-515)
Today's Reading
The Lord, before going to the heavens, delivered to us His church with all the believers. If He had given to us only the talent to minister the life supply, then to whom would we minister? However, He gave us two categories of things: one is His possessions, the other is the talents. Today we have the church with all the believers as the possession, the portion to us, to which we can give something, and we have the talents as the spiritual gifts. You cannot say you are not gifted. Actually, you are much gifted. For this reason I have always encouraged you to function. Some may consider this merely to be my practice. They may say that in all of Christianity they only saw the practice of good preachers speaking to a crowd. They never saw a meeting with so many standing up to speak....One after another stands up like popcorn popping. It is very good to have a “popcorn meeting.” This is altogether what we expect to have. This is not my teaching; this is the Bible's teaching (1 Cor. 14:24, 26, 29-32). We all have to learn to function....For you to speak is to minister food to the Lord's household at the proper time.Whoever serves food knows the proper time. If you are serving food every day, you have to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner. To buy a cup of coffee and a doughnut for breakfast is the lazy way. If we are like this in the spiritual realm, we will be poor slaves to minister the life supply to the master's folks at the proper time. The proper time in the morning is breakfast. Also, good wives prepare the best sandwiches for their husbands to bring to the office for lunch at the proper time and are accustomed to preparing a big dinner for their family.
In like manner, whenever we meet together, this is one of the proper times, the appointed times, for you to minister the proper food to the Lord's folks. Suppose, however, that I was sloppy, not reading the Word. If I did not labor adequately in the Word and came to speak to you, I would just be ministering to you “a cup of coffee and some doughnuts.” To cook a nourishing, good breakfast, requires your diligence. According to the context of this parable, the faithful one is the diligent one. Faithful in Matthew 24:45 equals diligent, and slothful in 25:26 equals lazy. We must be diligent in seeking the Word so that we could prepare to serve good food when we come to the meeting. The eating time is the proper time, and the meeting time is the proper time....The meeting times are the proper times when we all have to minister some portion of the life supply to our folks, to our fellow believers, to our possessions.
The Lord has given us the church as the object for us to serve, and He has also given us the ability, the skill, the gift, to care for our obligation. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “The Way to Practice the Lord's Present Move,” pp. 515-516)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “The Way to Practice the Lord's Present Move,” ch. 10