I was having a conversation with one of my good friends Jason recently and during the conversation aspects of our God came up. This is one of the reasons I always like talking with Jason, because in each and every conversation with him the greatness of our God must arise! In short, a heavenly conversation must ensue and yesterday while speaking was no different.
Jason posed this question to me, “What do you think God would ask us when we see him face to face?”. With swift reply he answered his own question, “God wouldn’t ask us how much money we had or thank us for becoming CEO of a fortune 500 company. But for a surety God would ask us, how much souls did you save, did you help the poor and needy among you”.
Jason’s question stood out to me and became locked in my mind because he was right. God is not moved by many of the things we consider important and that we allow to consume us on a daily basis. This misalignment can easily happen if we don’t stay close enough to God to feel his pulse and hear His heart.
A good way to keep our spiritual compasses pointed in the correct direction is by serving God with the end in mind. I am not speaking about the end just in terms of reaching heaven, no no no. I am speaking about the end as it relates to reaching heaven and receiving our reward from the Father – the true end.
I am speaking about reaching heaven and God asking us to give an account for the life he gave to us.
Matthew 25:31-46 (NIV)
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
As we can see, our Lord and King Jesus already told us what he is looking for on judgement day, and in fairness He is judging the righteous and unrighteous by the same standard (helping others). Another key thing to note, nothing in that passage directly relates to how much we studied the bible, how much we were filled with the Holy Spirit or how many times we religiously attended prayer meetings and prophesied and spoke in tongues. Although these things are extremely important, they are more of enablers which allow us to have greater abilities to serve others. Therefore, in the ‘true end’ it is not about getting abilities, giftings and spiritual fruits , but we will be assessed by how well we used these abilities in the service of others.
The question our Lord Jesus would ask us on judgement day can be embodied in this phrase, “How Well Did You Serve Others”. So, if Jesus is looking for this in the end, then all my efforts and energies must be geared towards this end. My friends and brothers, lets re-calibrate and realign now so we don’t miss the mark and here depart from me I know you not, because thou did not serve me by helping others.
Yours Faithfully,
Dane A. Miller
Dane A. Miller's Blog 
This blog truly spoke to me. I feel so guilty at times when I miss church( which is not very often). However to have it confirmed in the scripture quoted that I am pleasing my God by being of service to others is truly awesome. I enjoy giving, feeding, clothing those in need, and I do this. I will double, triple my actions to bring glory to his kingdom. Praise his mighty name. I love you Lord!
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Thanks for the feedback Leslie and I am glad that the blog post touched you. I feel very strongly about this because the modern day model of serving God is too heavily weighted towards being in church only. Case in point, if we are speaking to someone ( Friends, Family, Coworker) about God we focus on inviting them to church. But when I look at the New Testament they carried the church to the people ( e.g Paul and Silas in prison then the jailer got saved , Peter and John at the temple and the lame man was healed, and the list goes on).
We are like delivery truck drivers who are delivering product and our product is Salvation. The church is analogous the gas station which the driver pulls up in to get refreshed, get directions and obtain gas for his/her tank to continue on the road of product delivery. The gas station is important and necessary but it is not the prime objective. The prime objective is to make deliveries by using the essential support and input from the Gas Station (Church).
It seems to me that we are parked in the gas station for to long or only moving from gas station to gas station and forgotten that our job is not just to fuel up, but also to go on the highways and byways and feed the people (lost souls) with our product.
Just calling it as I see it.
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