All our Service in the Church must be Initiated by God According to His Desire

In serving God we need to take Him as the source of all our service: God has to be the originator, initiator, operator, motivator, and source of our service; our service should be initiated by God.

As believers in Christ we are sons of Abraham, who is the father of faith; like our father, we need to believe in God as the unique source, realizing that God is the One who calls things not being as being, and He gives life to the dead.

God is our Father; He is our source both humanly (all men were created by Him, He sustains our human life, and from Him we have breath and life and everything) and spiritually (the divine life in our spirit is from God, and He daily supplies us with the divine life abundantly).

In the whole universe God the Father is the only legitimate Originator, and in our hearts the Holy Spirit is the only legitimate Initiator; we simply need to cooperate with His work and be one with Him in what He wants to do.

However, many fervent believers in Christ and loving seekers of God want to do things for God; they see a certain need, they have a certain ability, and they just pray about it and go ahead and do it, yet without taking God as their source.

We need to receive the Lord’s mercy and light to realize that we have no right to initiate any service for God; we need to minister to the Lord, enjoy Him, and be fully open to Him, and in His time and in His way He will initiate something, and we will simply cooperate with Him.

God must be the Originator of all our spiritual work – and His will must govern the beginnings of our service. The fact that a certain work for God is successful in man’s eyes doesn’t mean that God will receive it or that He’s pleased with it; God is more concerned with the source of our service and the means of our service than with the result of our service.

We need to take God as our unique source, loving Him with the best love, and doing the first works (which come out of the best love), so that our service may be pleasing to Him, being accepted by Him before His throne in that day.

All our Work and Service in the Church must be Initiated by God and must be According to His desire

All of our work and service in the church must be initiated by God and must be according to His desire. All work must be initiated by God and not by us; this is a spiritual principle that is easy to understand but not easy to experience.

We need to consider our work for the Lord in the church life: how much is it initiated by God, and how much did we initiate it?

In the Old Testament Moses wanted to serve God to deliver His people, and he eventually did this, but his service was initiated by God. All that Moses did was originated by God: slaughtering the lambs, keeping the Passover, delivering the children of Israel from Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, the manna, the waters at Marah turning sweet, coming to the mountain of God, the pattern of the tabernacle, every detail of the furnishings in the tabernacle, etc.

Genuine service can come only from God and can be initiated only by God, not by us; only that which comes from God is service according to revelation and carried out according to His heart’s desire.

It is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure, His satisfaction; we simply need to cooperate with the Lord’s operating in us (Phil. 2:13). God is the source of our willing and our working, and this issues in His building, which is His good pleasure.

Paul served God according to his own zeal and religious opinions until God met him, shined on him, and infused him with a vision of His economy; from then on, Paul served God according to the divine revelation, allowing God to be the source of his service.

Our work and service must be initiated by God and must be according to His desire, which is His economy; in His economy God wants to fill His people with nothing but Christ for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

We need to exercise our spirit to be one with the Lord, being attuned to Him and one with Him, so that He would initiate and we would cooperate; when we exercise our spirit, we don’t only enjoy and experience Christ but also see what’s on the Lord’s heart and how to serve the Lord.

Genuine service comes only from God – not from us; only that which is initiated by God is service according to His revelation (see Eph. 1:17; 3:3-5).

May we learn to take God as our source, be one spirit with Him, and cooperate with His operation in us and through us, so that all our service and work in the church would be initiated by God and be according to His heart’s desire.

Lord Jesus, may all our work and service in the church be initiated by You and be according to Your desire. We want to learn to NOT initiate anything but just cooperate with You even as You operate in us both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure. Lord, be the source of our service; be the Initiator, Originator, and Motivator of all our work and service for You in the church life. We want to render You genuine service, the service that comes from God and is according to revelation!

Not having a Religious Activity but Fearing God and Taking God as the Source of our Service

Cain wanted to serve God and worship God, but he didn’t do it in God’s way with the offerings that He ordained; therefore, Cain invented his own religion, his own way of worshipping God, and the result is that he killed his brother.

Anything that is initiated or started by man in serving God, regardless how much it is for God, is a religious activity. In God’s eyes, anything that man initiates to serve God is not His service and work; God considers only what He has initiated and started as a service and work for Him.

Yes, God wants man to serve Him, but He doesn’t want man to initiate anything; He simply wants us to cooperate with Him, allowing God to initiate.

Paul initiated a lot of things before he received the Lord; he was a professional at doing a religious activity. However, when the Lord shined on him and gained his full attention, He infused Paul with the truth of God’s economy, revealing His Son in him; from then on, Paul didn’t take anyone else as his source but took God as the unique source of his service (Gal. 1:13-16).

In all our service and work for God we should have a regard for God and fear God; we should be fearful that what we are doing for God is not initiated by God but by ourselves.

Cain served God, was zealous for God, and gave offerings to God. However, his service, his offering, and his zeal originated from himself, not from God, so God disregarded him. In all our service, do we really have a regard for God and fear God? Are we fearful that what we do for God is not of God but of ourselves? Do we fear that our pious activities may be considered rebellious and sinful in His eyes? God has ordained that we work in a certain way, but do we reject God’s command and work in another way? Are we fearful of offering the fruit of the ground rather than animal sacrifices to God? Are we afraid that our work and service are not of God but of ourselves? Just as we fear our temper, do we also fear our preaching of the gospel, our zeal, our service, and our consecration? We should be as fearful of these as we are fearful of sinning and falling. (Witness Lee, Knowing Life and the Church, p. 194)

If we are really open to the Lord and have His shining on us and our work and service for Him, we will be fearful in our service to God; we may realize that our service is like Cain’s and not like Abel’s….and many things that we do are not initiated by God but are rather a religious activity.

A religious activity is any service or worship that doesn’t originated from God’s revelation, His command, or His leading. Many believers are zealous for God, love God, and do many things for God according to their own view (or the view of the denomination/community they are in), but this is only a religious activity.

May the Lord save us from merely having a religious activity for Him! May we learn to fear God, fear doing things for God that are not initiated by God, and may we take God as the source of our service, letting Him be the originator and initiator.

May we remain in the wonderful, precious, romantic organic union with the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), and may we be one spirit with the source, God Himself, in everything that we are and do!

Lord Jesus, save us from having a mere religious activity as we initiate things or start a work for You yet without taking You as the source. Save us from taking the way of Cain, the way of serving God according to our own view, opinion, preference, and feeling. Oh Lord, keep us one spirit with You as the Source, the Originator, and the Initiator, so that everything we do would be out from You as the source! Lord, apart from You we can do nothing, and apart from You initiating the work we don’t want to start doing anything. Lord, we love You and we take You as our source!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message for this week, and Knowing Life and the Church (pp. 191-196, by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 4 / msg. 4, The Service that is from God.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # My soul, be silent, wait upon the Lord! / First let Him speak to thee, then speak to Him; / True prayer in thee the Lord initiates, / Thou but a channel art expressing Him…. / My soul, be silent, wait upon the Lord! / Silent to all thy wishes and thy plans, / Silent to all thy earthly cares and calls, / That God may work in thee all His demands. (Hymns #793)
  # Pray to labor with the Lord; / Let the Lord initiate / All the plan and all the work; / Then thru us He’ll operate. (Hymns #786)
  # Lord, I only live for You— / Not anything else! / In everything You’re my source; / No more good intentions, / No more right or wrong. / I don’t want a “good” life— / I want You! (Song on taking God as our source)