Serve Jesus Where He Has Put You (Now)

Murray State University Arboretum

Many of us feel trapped in our life circumstances. The 9-5 grind. Commuting to work. A boring job. The endless routine of caring for small children. A mediocre and unremarkable church. Bad health and limited mobility. Even many of the good things in life—work, family, church—can feel like they are the things holding us back from serving Jesus as we would like. This is nothing new. Dissatisfaction with life is older than the book of Ecclesiastes.

"Even many of the good things in life—work, family, church—can feel like they are the things holding us back from serving Jesus as we would like"

Being a Christian should cause us to look at our life circumstances differently. At the end of his letter to the church at Philippi, Paul instructs his readers to imitate his gospel-centred approach to life:

‘Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.’ (Philippians 4:9)

That command should lead us to start reading the letter again from the beginning to see what example Paul offers us to imitate. You’ll quickly realise that he spends the early part of the letter talking about how wonderful it is that he is in prison. That’s probably not the part that Christians are supposed to try to imitate! But the way in which Paul approached his time in prison is extremely important for all of us to consider in relation to our own lives. Read More

image: murraystate.edu