My pastor preached on 1 Peter 4:7-11 this past Sunday expounding on the apostle's exhortation to serve in God's strength. The theme of this entire month has been Serve. Pastor threw out a tidbit of wisdom that struck my heart profoundly, and I thought I would share it with my readers as well. His third main point of the sermon proclaims that God supplies strength for us, based upon v.11 in the text where Peter states, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ..."
In conjunction with this profound truth, my pastor added this insight that spoke directly to my current situation. He said (and I may not have this directly quoted) "We become stronger by serving, we don't become strong so we can serve." Simple, yet stout enough to break the chains that bind. It's the same principle by which we sometimes explain coming to Christ. We don't clean up our lives so we may become worthy to follow Christ, we come to Christ just as we are, weak and helpless and his grace transforms us into new creations. Why do some of us Christians believe that God's grace is only sufficient for the act of coming to Jesus but somehow the rest of life is completely up to us?
