Great verses to live by. We cannot do anything for our LORD without being Filled with HIS HOLY SPIRIT.
We need the Power of the HOLY SPIRIT,
First to arrive at the destination that Christ has for us, as stated clearly in Romans 8:29-30 (Message) "God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun."
And we also need to be endued with Power from on High to Serve HIM effectively. I loved these lines I read in one of Uncle Zac Poonen's books called Beauty for Ashes - In a chapter called "Spirit-filled service"
There are four things that I would like to mention concerning Spirit-filled service, from the words of the Apostle Paul.
A love-slave
First of all, Spirit-filled service is the service of a love-slave. In Acts 27:23, Paul says, "...the God whose I am and whom I serve”. He was a love-slave of his God. He retained no right to his own life.
He had given everything to his Master.
Paul was a love-slave of the Lord. Like the Hebrew slave, who could go free in the seventh year of his service, but chose to continue in that service because he loved his master (Exod. 21:1-6), Paul served his Lord. He was not a hired servant who worked for wages, but one who served without any rights of his own. The service of a love-slave has been beautifully summed up by someone in the following poem:
“I’m but a slave!
I have no freedom of my own;
I cannot choose the smallest thing –
Nor e’en my way.
I’m a slave!
Kept to do the bidding of my Master –
He can call me night or day.
Were I a servant, I could claim wages –
Freedom sometimes, anyway.
But I was bought -
Blood was the price my Master paid for me,
And I am now His slave –
And evermore will be.
He takes here, He takes me there,
He tells me what to do;
I just obey, that’s all –
I trust Him too!”
This is what it means to be a love-slave.
God is looking for those who are so yielded to Him, that they will look to Him always to see what He wants them to do - and not busy doing what they feel they should do for God. A slave does not go around doing whatever he feels like. No. The slave asks his master, “Master, what do you want me to do?" And he does what he is told. The Bible says, "The most important thing about a servant is that he does just what his master tells him to” (1 Cor. 4:2-LB).
As someone has put it so beautifully, this is the type of man the Lord is looking for:
"I'm seeking for one who will wait and watch
For My beckoning Hand, My eye;
Who will work in My manner, the work I give,
And the work I give not, pass by.
And oh the joy that is brought to Me
When one such as this I can find,
A man who will do all My will –
Who is set To study His Master's mind."
"I sought for a man," the Lord once said, "but I found none” (Ezek. 22:30). He is looking for love-slaves today. But He finds so few.
Spirit-filled service is outgoing. Recognizing its debt to others, it is always ready to go and discharge that debt.
The evidence of the Spirit's fullness and the beauty of the Christ-life are seen not in thrilling emotional experiences but in a passion in the heart that says (as Mrs. F.C. Durham has so wonderfully put it):
"I am Thy slave, Thy bondslave;
nevermore Will I be free from this fierce urge within,
To spread from race to race, and shore to shore
The joyful news of pardon for man’s sin.
Give me the souls of men, or else I die,
Give me the love that counteth not the cost,
Give me that faith all barriers to defy,
Give me the joy of bringing home the lost.”
Spirit-filled service has an evangelistic passion and is perpetually outgoing. It is concerned with the needs of others and not its own satisfaction. Christ Himself never once sought His own satisfaction (Rom. 15:3).
God is looking for men and women who will never be content with mere experiences and “blessings," but who will take up the cross daily and follow Jesus and thus manifest in their lives and in their service the reality of those words,
“It is no longer I, but Christ that lives in me." This, and this alone is the Spirit-filled life.
“Not I but Christ be honored, loved, exalted,
Not I but Christ be seen, be known, be heard;
Not I but Christ in ev’ry look and action,
Not I but Christ in ev’ry thought and word
Oh to be saved from myself, dear Lord,
Oh to be lost in Thee,
Oh that it may be no more I
But Christ that lives in me.”
(Selected)
Amen and Amen.