Quotes about Service

What you realize when you work in the philanthropic world is that people aren't just numbers: they are families with real needs and you need to make your judgments with kindness and thoughtfulness in order to serve those needs.

God is asking for that abandonment of man to Himself which says, "We pour all at Thy feet, and if Thou shouldst crown us, we would rejoice, but only that a crown was ours to cast at the feet of Christ." When men reach that point, greed has gone out of their service.

No man lived a more strong and beautiful life than did John Wesley, and his view of death was that whenever it came he would be found at his duty; and the transition from that duty to heaven's service would be a natural one. Instead of death, let the Lord be expected; and the true attitude of life will be that of quiet pursuit of duty and constant readiness to greet Him.

That's what's so difficult about Jesus' call to love others. On one level, it's easy to love God, because God doesn't smell. God doesn't have bad breath. God doesn't reward kindness with evil. God doesn't make berating comments. Loving God is easy, in this sense. But Jesus really let us have it when he attached our love for God with our love for other people.

we can use marriage for the same purpose—to grow in our service, obedience, character, pursuit, and love of God.

One of Satan's cleverest attacks is getting us to pour our time and energy into people who resent the grace we share and who will never change, keeping us from spending time with and focusing on others whom we can love and serve.

I no longer call you servants,…I have called you friends."14 Servants is a "doing" word; friends is a "being" word. What do servants do? They cook, clean, et cetera. A friend, however, is something you are, not something you do. A servant is Martha, a friend is Mary.

If a woman essentially abandons her family to ambitiously serve God, she will likely display the same lack of compassion and empathy for others as she does for her own family, who feel her absence keenly.

God is radically for people. He wants everyone to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). As his followers, we also must be for everyone, even if we oppose what they're doing. If we must live and work with toxic people, our call is to make sure their toxicity doesn't become ours. We don't treat them as they treat us. We don't offer evil in exchange for evil. We love. We serve. We guard our hearts so that we are not poisoned by their bad example.

Married life, offered in service to God, is such a good and rewarding life. Let's give ourselves fully to it; let's keep building our "marital house" until we die, pursuing each other, forgiving each other, loving each other, and growing together through the years. If we do this, we will, like Anne, be richly blessed with a lifelong love.

Don't pass over this thought, because it's crucial: Isaiah 40:29 assumes that God will call us to various tasks for which we lack enough power on our own.

If we think that serving God always leads to greater prosperity, we're selectively reading our Bibles.