Good evening, brothers and sisters in the Lord.
As we come to the study of God’s Word, there is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable—a principle we cannot take for granted, a principle that we cannot live without. That principle is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
We do praise the Lord for every help, every assistant, every book, every commentator, every word-study book, atlas, concordance, and every help. But at the end of the day, we must come to the Lord Himself. Only God can reveal God. Only the Lord can show Himself.
He delights to do it. He will pour water on him that is thirsty. He will reveal these things unto babes. And He has promised that if we would come as little children, He would not hide these things from us, but He would reveal them unto us.
We come to see the Lord. We have come to hear from the Lord. And so I am going to ask you to bow with me, and we are going to commit our time to Him.
Before we actually do that, I want to call attention to a verse that, some weeks ago—more like a month ago, I think—made a great impact on my life. I was reading Acts 20. Remember when Eutychus fell out the window?
At first, I thought the principle was against long preaching. Then I thought it was against falling asleep while there is long preaching. But I have an idea that probably one of the main truths of that passage is this: if I am going to hear the full message, I need the resurrection power of the Lord.
In order to hear the complete message, he needed the resurrection power of the Lord. So let us trust Him to give us that power tonight, that we might hear fully what He says.
He is great enough to use this message. He chooses the foolish things, the weak things. So let us trust Him together.
Our Father, we thank You so much. In this whole matter of hearing Your voice, seeing You in the Scriptures, knowing You, and seeking Your face, You have not left us on our own, but You have put into our hearts the Holy Spirit.
We thank Thee. We praise Thee for that One who is God, who lives in us to unveil to us the Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray in a special way tonight that You might find us and meet us where we are, and take us where You would have us—especially in this whole matter of what it means to serve the Lord.
Give us ears to hear, we pray. Unveil the Lord Jesus to us, and by that revelation, we pray that we might be changed.
We come calling in the name of the Lord Jesus, and not because in any way we deserve to hear from heaven, but because our Lord Jesus deserves it. We claim His all-prevailing name. Amen.
As you know, our theme is 2 Timothy 2:21: that we might be vessels of honour, sanctified and, as Darby translates it, serviceable to the Master—or meet for the use of the Master, usable.
We have already heard this week that we were created to be His servants, so that is not the issue. The first time “servant” is mentioned in the Bible—in fact, seven times—in Exodus: “Let My people go, that they might serve Me.”
Created to serve. Redeemed to serve. We heard that we are called to serve. So that is not the issue. Are we His servants? Are we called to serve? Should we serve? That is not the issue. You were made for that. You are redeemed for that. You are called to that. I am called to that.
Are we serviceable? It is not the same thing. May God give us light on this. I am not suggesting in any way that it is asking whether we are worthy. We are never worthy; we will not be worthy to serve. But are we serviceable?
One danger that we face in a week like this is expressed in Luke 10:40. I like Darby’s translation of this as well:
Now Martha was distracted with much serving.
I say that is a danger that we can face, because we do not want to get distracted. Say, “We have come to study service.” No, we have not. We have come to see the Lord. That is why we are here.
Wouldn’t it be a terrible thing to come to see the Lord and just get distracted by something called service? I hope, when the Lord allows us to leave the conference, we know a lot more about service—we are taught of God in our hearts. Service is a wonderful thing, but it is not Him. It is not the Lord.
We have come to behold the Lord. Yes, we will hear about what it means to serve the Lord, serve the house, and serve one another. But we want to hear those things in a Christ-centred way. So pray as we present the truth, and pray as God burns that truth indelibly into your own heart.
Kenny Pittman suggested last evening that maybe we will need to refocus in terms of our views of Christian service, or rethink some of these matters. I do not know what your background is or what you have come with.
I know this: if you have come to pick up some new formula, you probably will not find it here this week. That is not what this is about.
Maybe you think, “Well, maybe God will challenge me this week, and I will be a more zealous servant—more on fire for the Lord, more dedicated, more zealous, more involved.” If you have come looking for that, you may be disappointed. That is not why we are here.
We are not here to discover some new plough that maybe you can put your hands on. What does it mean to serve the Lord? We want to behold Him.
I want to read some passages on service, to get your heart into what I think is God’s heart on this whole matter of serving the Lord. There are some passages that, when you hear them, are not like the regular ones. There are some regular passages, and then there are some service passages, and your heart responds. It is like the strumming of a chord, and your heart says, “I do not know a lot about service, but yes, that—I like that.”
Let me read a couple of verses. Acts 13:36 says that David “served the purpose of God in his generation.” How would you like that on your gravestone?
Romans 7:6: the apostle Paul says to serve the Lord “in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.” I may not know a lot about service, but that sounds good. What does it mean to serve in newness of spirit?
Hebrews 9:14 says that the blood of Christ might cleanse our conscience from dead works, that we might serve the living God. Romans 12:1 speaks of a spiritual service of worship.
When we hear verses like that, we say, “I really want to hear about service. If I can serve the purpose of God in my generation, I want to hear about it. If there is such a thing as serving in newness of spirit—not the deadness of the letter—with a clean conscience, free from dead works, to serve the living God—spiritual service, worship—what is that all about?”
Brothers and sisters in the Lord, has God given a word, something that will illumine us and teach us what it means to be serviceable to the Master? I believe He has.
Several times already this week, it has been suggested that we follow 1 Samuel 3:9 as a prayer:
Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.
“Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.” Let us make that our prayer this week.
As you know by now, the privilege that I have is to share on this wonderful reality: what does it mean to serve the Lord? It is so easy to say, as Joshua 24:15 says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” That is easy to say. What does it mean?
Deuteronomy 10 says, “Serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Deuteronomy 28 says, “Serve the Lord with joy and with a glad heart.” First Samuel 12 says, “Serve Him in truth with all your heart.” First Chronicles 28 says, “Serve Him with a willing mind.”
“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” What does it mean?
It has been the prevailing emphasis, in my short contact with the Richmond Family Conference—and, as I understand it, through the years—to focus on God’s viewpoint; to focus on what the Lord says, His purpose, His design, His plan, His pattern.
Over and over again through the years, God’s messengers have taken God’s people back to the original. What is God’s heart on this? What does He say?
Let me ask this: has God given a blueprint? Is there a master plan for this thing called serving the Lord? Is there a design, a scheme, that we can look at and take the reality and say, “Now this is how God intended it”?
If there were some resolve of God, some divine intention—if He had written out some blueprint of Christian service, some master design from the heart of the Master Himself—wouldn’t that be wonderful?
When He gave the tabernacle to Moses, He said in Exodus 25:9:
According to all that I shew thee, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the furniture thereof, even so shall ye make it.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a blueprint that God would hand down—not for the tabernacle, but for Christian service; how to minister, how to serve the Lord? “According to all that I am going to show you this week, just so construct.”
There is a master plan. There is a blueprint.
This morning, Brother Dana showed us these wonderful servants of the Lord in the Old Testament—beautiful servants of the Lord. But Jacob is an incomplete model. Moses is an incomplete model. So is Samuel. So is Daniel. So is David. Put them all together, and you get this picture, but they are still incomplete models.
Then Dana pointed us to the Lord Jesus, the Servant. You cannot say that He is an incomplete model. But in the minds of some, they might think He is an unattainable model. He is different. He is the God-Man. I am not the God-Man.
Is there another blueprint?
We could look back, before sin entered the picture, before sin entered the race, before the Fall—when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. Was there anything at that time called service? Before the Fall? Before sin?
I remember hearing Dana make some very suggestive comments about life before the Fall, based on Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.” God took the man and put him in the garden to cultivate and keep it.
We could go back there, but that is so vague, so hazy. If you go back before man sinned, you have some suggestive words: fruitful, multiply, subdue, rule, cultivate, keep. I have an idea it is all there, but it is all in seed form—so dim, so vague.
My heart cries out, “Lord, I want to be serious about this thing called service.” I look in the Bible and see servant after servant, but they are all incomplete models. I read the Gospel of Mark and see our Lord Jesus, and somehow He just seems unattainable.
I go back before the Fall, before sin, and I see these wonderful words. But what was involved in cultivating and keeping and all of that? Ask Dana; he knows all about that.
So I make this suggestion: how about if we cannot look back before the Fall and only get a little idea—could we look ahead? After the sin problem has been dealt with, after it is all over, could we look ahead where there is no sin and where they are free from all kinds of distortion?
You have already heard several times this week these passages, and I am going to ask you to turn there now. Pray for me as I set before your heart God’s blueprint: heavenly service.
Turn, please, to Revelation 7. Revelation 7, beginning at verse 13.
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These that are arrayed in white robes, who are they, and whence came they?
And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest.
And he said to me, These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither at all shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat:
For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Can we get past the controversy of verse 13? Can we lay aside our distinctive views? Who are these robed in white? Leave that to the hermeneuts. Leave that to the prophetic gladiators who are out there—all of you eschatological exegetes who like to argue over those things.
Home in on verse 15: “They serve Him day and night in His temple.”
Can we agree on this? Whoever these saints are, and whatever dispensation they represent at this time, God has brought them to the eternal state. They are in their final condition, in that place we commonly call heaven. For this week, humour me—that is what we will call it, whatever your theological approach is.
In this perfect condition, in this everlasting state with the sin problem settled, they serve Him day and night.
Go to the close of your Bible, Revelation 22, beginning at verse 1.
And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof.
And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
And there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall serve Him;
And they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads.
Verse 3: “His servants shall serve Him.” This is in eternity. This is in heaven. Up there, when it is all over, He has servants—bondservants who serve Him day and night forever.
This, I think, can be the key to the master plan. Here is the reality laid upon the blueprint. Here is service as God intended it to be—service in its purest form, service in its highest expression.
Do you want to know what it means to serve the Lord? What would happen if God enabled us to look up there, where His bondservants serve Him day and night? As Kenny Pittman said the other night, after the doing is done, they are serving Him.
As age rolls on age in heaven, His bondservants are going to serve Him day and night. That is God’s will. That is God’s heart. That is God’s plan. How do they do it?
If we can see—are you with me?—if we can see how they do it, maybe God will dawn on us how we can do it. We want to look at heavenly service.
Maybe that is what our Lord Jesus had in mind when He taught us to pray:
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
His will is being done up there. How? That is what we want to look at this week: how do they do it, in order that God might dawn on us how we are to do it?
I am suggesting that the same principles by which His bondservants will serve Him forever are the principles by which we, on the earth, can offer Him a heavenly service. May God dawn Himself on us as we look at these things.
That is a big topic, as you would expect. So let me give you a couple of limits, because otherwise we will be everywhere.
The first limit is this: I want to focus on His bondservants up there. There are other people in heaven. The Trinity—the Godhead—is in heaven, and God is doing God’s will. But I do not think that is what He had in mind when He said, “Thy will be done.”
He is not saying, “Thy will be done on earth among Your Christians, Your servants, as the Godhead is doing it in heaven.” That is true, but I do not think that is what He had in mind.
I know there are other beings up there: the cherubim, the seraphim, the archangel, and all the various levels of angels. I do not think He had that in mind either. They too are incomplete servants. They are strangers to sorrow, suffering, and our salvation.
I am sure they are going around doing God’s will at lightning speed, and they are immediate and so on, but they are incomplete pictures.
These bondservants are not merely the spirits of just men made perfect. It is beyond that. We are not talking about saints in the intermediate state. This pictures them when they receive their new bodies—glorified—how they will serve the Lord forever in their resurrection bodies. That is what we want to see.
There is one other limitation. We are going to have to limit it to the how of doing His will, and not the what.
I think the what changes. Whatever service they are doing up there is not exactly what the service we are doing on earth would be. There is no evangelism up there. There is no soul winning up there. There is no bringing the lost to Jesus up there. That day has passed.
They will not be visiting the sick, the prisoner, or the orphan. The day of handing out a cup of water in the name of the Lord Jesus has passed.
No counselling up there. No ministry to backsliders up there. No encouraging the depressed up there. No washing the saints’ feet. That is all over. Hospitality, intercession, preaching, teaching—I do not know what they do up there.
Do not get me wrong: I like singing as much as the next fellow. But after a million years of “Amazing Grace,” I think even in heaven’s perfect harmony, after a while, they are doing something else.
I know it must include marvelling, worshipping, and praising the Lord, and all of that. But the what changes. Here is what I am suggesting to you: the how does not change.
Whatever they are doing, how do they do it? “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We are going to discover the how and bring the how down to earth, that we might have a heavenly service on the earth.
Want to serve the Lord? He has given us a master plan. He has given us a blueprint. Somehow, if God can take us up there to look at that plan and then bring us down here, by the Spirit of God, to apply it, I think we will be a little closer to what it means to be serviceable to the Master.
For those who like logical connection, let me suggest at least my part of this. As I have come before the Lord to look at that marvellous blueprint, I have found at least three principles—which is perfect, because I speak three times.
I do not doubt at all that there are many more. But as I looked up at the blueprint and watched the servants, the bondservants of the Lord, serve Him forever, I asked, “Lord, how are they doing that?”
God began to unfold this. He showed me this: how does heaven begin, and how does it continue forever?
When I asked that question—how does heaven begin, and how does it continue forever?—I found one of the hows. God began to write it in my soul. I laid it aside and came back to the Scripture and the blueprint, and all of a sudden there it was again: how does heaven begin? A different answer. And how does it continue forever? I saw another principle of what it means to serve the Lord.
I came back again, and I saw it again: how does heaven begin, and how does it continue forever?
Brothers and sisters in the Lord, that is what we want to look at this week. My outline will be simple: how does heaven begin, and how does it continue forever? We will take the facts of that and see the principle. We will come from heaven and bring it down to earth, and ask, “Can it apply here?”
I will suggest that nothing else applies. “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
That is what I am about, and that is where I am heading. I do not know if God is going to bless you; He has already blessed me out of my socks. So it is okay—be patient with me.
We were singing “Holy Ground” before. This is holy ground. Some of this is new—not novel, but new and fresh to my soul.
Let us at least get the first one before us tonight. How does heaven begin? How does it continue forever? I am going to ask you to turn to John 5. We will get the facts and then look at the principle.
John 5: our Lord Jesus points to a wonder, a marvel, He calls it. There are many marvels in this chapter, but this is a marvel of marvels. This is even more marvellous than the healing of the man at Bethesda.
This is, according to our Lord Jesus, more astounding and more marvellous than what our brother Stephen was sharing this afternoon, when the Holy Spirit makes our spirit alive again. That is a marvel.
This is a marvel of marvels altogether new. Verse 25, please—John 5:25:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.
I think in the context He is talking about spiritual life. But then verse 28:
Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice,
And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have practised evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.
This had never been thought of. The immortality of the soul—spiritual immortality—had been thought of, because that makes sense logically on the level of earth and the lower arena. The spirit is at least like God, who is a Spirit.
But never, never, in the boldest imaginations of the wisest men of earth, had anyone entertained the thought that the body would survive the dishonours of the grave. That was a marvel. That was an amazing thing.
We are not talking about creation. We are not talking about God making a new body. It is not a re-creation; it is a resurrection. The same body that had gone to dust and ashes, that had been disassembled, scattered, and assimilated—an amazing thing.
He said, “That body—the day is coming. You want to marvel? At the voice of the Son of God, that body is coming back.” Same DNA, marvellously.
There is not a man, not a woman, not a child since Adam who has ever died that will not rise in the identical body that their spirit has abandoned. Amazing thing.
How does heaven begin? The answer is: it begins with a resurrection. It begins with a marvel, one of the grandest displays of grace in the universe.
We are always asking—I do not know if you are, but in the circles that I came up in—“What is man’s part? What is my part? What is God’s part? I cannot just sit back. What do I do? What is my responsibility? What is my duty?”
All right, let us go to the last chapter, folks. Let me ask you this: in the resurrection, what is your part? Do you want to help? Are you going to assist?
Isaiah saw the Lord and said he was undone. This is undone. When you go into the grave and begin to decay, and that thing is disassembled, and all those atoms—I do not understand the science part of it—but I tell you, at that time, if God does not do it, it ain’t done.
I like Kenny’s remark: when all the doing is done, how does heaven begin? It begins with one of the grandest displays of grace in the universe, where man has no part and God has every part: a mighty miracle of God—resurrection. That is how heaven begins.
How does heaven continue forever? In order to answer that question, I want to ask this: why, in God’s description of that place, that eternal state, does He call attention over and over again to the fact that there will be no sun there, no moon there?
Follow these verses, if you would. Revelation 21:22-23:
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof.
And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.
Revelation 22:5:
And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
This was prophesied by Isaiah 60:19:
The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord will be thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.
Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord will be thine everlasting light; and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
When God created the sun, what did He intend that it would picture? What did He intend by that—the sun of our solar system?
When God created the sun, He created the sun to be, in our solar system and in our experience, the greatest giver. The sun is a giver; the earth is a receiver.
The sun gives and gives. Without the sun, there is no light, no heat, no colour, no life, no weather, no food, no fruit. There is nothing. Everything depends on the relationship that the earth has to the sun. If you are too close, you are burned up. If you are too far away, you are a glacier. There has to be a proper relationship, and God made it that way.
Psalm 116:12 asks a question that touches on service:
What shall I render unto the Lord
For all His benefits toward me?
He is asking, “How can I serve the Lord? What can I give Him for all of His benefits toward me?”
Let me ask this question. I will use the words of the psalmist. Let us say the earth could talk. The sun is its great benefactor; the sun has been giving to the earth. Now the earth asks, “What can I render to the sun for all his benefits toward me?”
What can the earth give the sun? What contribution can the earth make to the sun? Can the earth enrich the sun in any way? Can it give anything?
The answer is yes. If you thought no, you are wrong. The answer is yes. What can the earth give to the sun? It can give a testimony.
By receiving, we know what the sun can do. The earth became a receiver, and all of a sudden we know what the sun can do. If the earth did not receive, we would think the sun is just a ball of fire, and all it can do is glow.
What can the sun do? Just burn? Just shine? Just radiate? Just glow? It is all glory. No, it is not. Because the earth received its rays, and the earth was transformed and changed. Life came. Fruit came. Everywhere you look on earth, you have a testimony: “What a great sun there is up there!”
The earth learned how to serve. The earth saw that it could serve the sun by letting the sun serve the earth.
Are you with me? The earth learns the principle of receiving, and as it receives all that the sun gives, there is a testimony in this transformation.
When we go to heaven, are we going to have a Lord’s Table, a bread-breaking service? Not up there. Why? Why will we not have a bread-breaking service up there? We have the reality; we do not need a picture.
Why will there be no sun up there? Because they have the reality. He created the sun to be the great giver and the earth to be the great receiver. In heaven, it begins with a miracle of grace, a miracle of resurrection. How does it continue forever? God serves them.
There is no need of the sun. He is the source. God created the sun to picture our Lord Jesus, the Light of the world. Our God is a sun and shield. All through the Bible: “Make Thy face to shine upon me.” It is all designed to picture the Giver.
“What shall I render unto the Lord?” Let us answer it in the next verse. Psalm 116:13 says:
I will take the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord.
What can I give Him? You can give Him a heart that receives. You want to serve the Lord? Then let Him serve you. That is a heavenly principle of service.
One of my favourite verses on the second coming comes from Luke 12:37:
Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them sit down to meat, and shall come and serve them.
I knew that was true in the first coming: He did not come to be ministered unto, but He came to minister. He came to serve. He came to wash our feet. But according to Luke 12:37, when He comes again, He is going to put on the slave’s apron again, and He is going to wait on them forever.
That is how it is up there.
Brothers and sisters, let us come back to earth. This is the first principle. We are going to look again: how does heaven begin, and how does it continue? But let us start here. May God burn it into our hearts.
How does heaven begin? It begins with a mighty miracle. If you thought you could come to a conference like this, write down a few principles in your notebook, take them home, and say, “Now I have learned to serve the Lord,” you are mistaken.
It is a mighty miracle of God to serve the Lord. It is a miracle of resurrection, a miracle of life. That is how heaven begins.
How does heaven continue? By God serving us.
I have an idea that the things I am sharing with you are not the first time you have heard them. I have an idea that, for many of you—probably most of you—you have understood by God’s Spirit, by God’s light, this great principle that God is the Giver.
You could illustrate it anywhere. He is our sun and shield. He is the Giver. He is the Head of the body, and the members draw from the Head. He is the Vine; we are the branches. We must receive from Him.
But as I wrap it up, I want to illustrate it one more time. Turn, if you would, to Colossians—rather, Colossians 2. Begin at verse 6.
I am going to jump right into the middle of his argument in order to illustrate this point:
As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
Rooted and builded up in Him, and established in your faith, even as ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
God takes us in this passage back to the beginning. Has it been that long? Do you remember when it started for you? When God dawned Christ on you, do you remember that day? It began by receiving.
“As ye received.” What did you receive that day? Not a doctrine. Not a church membership. Even though your Bible has become alive since then, you did not even receive a Bible then. You received a Person.
“As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” It never gets harder than receiving. It is always receiving. As you have received, so walk in Him.
Then look at the illustration He gives in verse 7: “Rooted and builded up in Him.” It is an illustration from botany, agriculture, plant life—firmly rooted in Him.
If you are a plant and you are firmly rooted, what is the picture? The answer is: He is the soil. You are rooted in the soil, which is Christ.
This is such an amazing book. He is the soil. He is the adequate soil. If you took Colossians and divided it at Colossians 2:6—“rooted in Him”—what comes before “rooted in Him”?
If you were here last year and heard Lance Lambert, as he shared from early Colossians—and as only he can do it—describing Christ: the image of the invisible God, the essence; He is God; the firstborn of all creation; the Lord of everything. He made it. He owns it. It is from Him. It is unto Him. He holds it all together, that all the fullness might dwell in Him.
What is God doing before He gets to “rooted in Him”? I will tell you what He is doing, brothers and sisters in the Lord. He is analysing the soil. He is showing you how adequate the soil is—how sufficient, how perfect, how enough.
Then He says, “You are rooted in Him.” This One who is God, this One who holds it all together, this One who is Lord, this One in whom all fullness dwells—He is your soil. Is that enough?
Rooted in Him, receiving from Him. You want to serve the Lord? Then let Him be your soil.
That is all before Colossians 2:6. What is after it? I will tell you what is after it: there are voices, influences, enemies, people who are trying to uproot you, spoil you, ruin you, and cut off that lifeline.
That is the whole message of Colossians. Look at your soil. You are rooted in Him. Do not let anyone, anything, or any power cut off your lifeline from Him. You will not be able to serve the Lord.
That is how you serve Him: you receive from Him. You serve the Lord by letting the Lord serve you.
Oh, may God teach us from heaven. We have only begun to look at the blueprint. We need to come again and look again. How does heaven begin? How does it end—or continue, because it will not end? How does it continue forever?
For tonight, may God burn this into our heart: Christian service is a miracle of God, a supernatural resurrection. That is how it begins.
It continues by God pouring out and you taking in—God pouring, and you taking in. You want to serve the Lord? Then ask Him to give you an open heart. Ask Him to give you a responsive heart.
The more you let God pour into you, the more you are giving a testimony. That is how earth gives a testimony to the sun. Otherwise, you think he is just glory out there. But as you receive, you are serving Him by receiving. That is how to serve the Lord.
That is one principle that I get from heaven. They do not need the sun, because they have the Son up there, and the Lamb is the lamp.
Those are everlasting principles. They are true now. You also have been promised resurrection. I am not talking only about the future. “When we see Him, we will be like Him”—that is true now. When you see Him, you are like Him. Resurrection now. God serving you now.
You are rooted and grounded in Him. Do not let anybody or anything uproot you, spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, or through any kind of legalistic teaching. It is only Him. It is only Him.
You serve the Lord by letting the Lord serve you. Ask the Lord to make you a receiver, that God might be able to pour into you. How do you serve Him? When you take, when you take, when you take.
Oh, may God help us. This is heavenly service.
Father, thank You—not for what we think this might mean, but for everything You have inspired it to mean. We ask You to work that in our lives.
Teach us what it means to allow You to serve us, so that by receiving, we might serve You. Make the truth of being receivers a mighty factor in our lives.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.