Tears and Laughter

"So my dear brothers and sisters, stand strong. Do not let anything move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your work in the Lord is never wasted." 1 Corinthians 15:58 


These are the words I have lived by for the past few days. And let me tell you something, I have never experienced as much joy as I experienced tonight at worship. There was literally one point where I was torn between tears and laughter because I was overflowing with joy. It excites me to the point that I want to tell everyone this verse. I want to post it everywhere. I was people to read it, and also believer it. I want people to know whether they are planning, running sound, doing lights, playing, PRAYING, just coming and participating that their work for the Lord is not wasted. 


Work is one of those words that has a negative connotation accompanied with it. People rarely want to work. I never want to do my school work, especially reading, but if I can find a book to read that doesn't have anything to do with school, you better believe I will read that thing cover to cover in just a few days. It's the word 'work' that puts people off, especially me. I have found a joy in work lately though. Work doesn't always have to be negative, especially work for the Kingdom. It is such a pleasure to hold the responsibilities I hold in the different aspects of my life. The Lord is blessing me leaps and bounds through them all. I am creating new friendships with people that are just amazing at what they do and very few people ever know that. I am solidifying relationships with people that I have been friends with for a while and getting to serve with them is just making our friendship stronger. Every task that we may deem as small, from a simple prayer to pushing some buttons, is not wasted. The Lord sees it all. It isn't the act that we perform but it's the heart with which we perform it. It isn't success of an event but whether or not the message of Christ was displayed. I am so grateful to be where I am this year and I cannot wait to see what BIG, GREAT things the Lord has in store for me and my friends. 


To wrap things up, I read Oswald Chambers this afternoon and one of the quotes I had underlined was "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." This was Chambers' rewording of Luke 10:19-20 which says 


"Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."


Here Christ had chosen 72 followers to precede Him into towns that He was going. The 72 came back from their various places and were so excited that "even the demons obeyed us when we used Your name." (verse 17). His response was simply that He had given them marvelous power but their excitement and rejoicing shouldn't be in the things they were doing, but just in the fact that they KNEW HIM. Such a display of how we should be as we serve. Our excitement and joy shouldn't be when we have a successful or smooth event, but rather in the fact that the Lord loves us....LOVES US and GIVES us the opportunity to serve Him. He gives us those opportunities. He doesn't need us to serve Him. Our service is nothing really when you think of the God who created the vast universe and the planets and stars and figured out how to make a human body run with such complexity. He lets us serve Him and that should be exciting and mind blowing to us. 


I leave you with this song. I heard it a few weeks ago at church and have become obsessed with it. I love the first verse because it really embodies this passage that I was describing. Our lives should center, revolve, circle around Christ and our rejoicing should come in the fact that He is with us. So here you go. 

"Because of Your great love, I can come into Your temple. Because I fear and respect You, I can worship in Your holy temple." Psalm 5:7-8