I found myself in a profession several years ago where my work receives much visibility. It better. I’m the editor of a magazine which we all hope garners thousands of readers. One of my passions is technology and manufacturing strategy. I get to write about it and hopefully educate and motivate people.
The thing is–I am pretty recognizable. When I go to conferences most people say nice things about me. The thing I must continually remind myself is that I do this because of my passion, not because I want to be Lord of Automation or something.
Same thing in working for God. Do I do what I do because I want to be in charge, recognized as a leader, feel great about myself? How about you?
I’ve been reading in Acts for the past few months. There are a lot of nuggets of wisdom in this book that describes what people did in developing the early church. Today I was reading where Paul stopped at the port of Ephesus on his way back to Jerusalem. He didn’t want to go into the city–maybe he didn’t want to delay his trip or maybe he didn’t want to get into another scrape with “the Jews”.
He said good-bye to the elders of the church and reminded them he came to serve them. I got to thinking about that word–serve. Paul met lots of people. He converted lots of people from a life that was lost to a life that was full of grace. He taught, preached, developed leaders. What did he not do? He never set himself up as “the boss.” He was firm in his teachings–which he received first-hand from Jesus. But he never established an office–say High Bishop or something–and set himself up as the “political” leader.
Leadership is service. Paul remembered where his passion was. He developed leaders who could carry on and then he moved on to the next city and did it again. Most of his letters back to those groups were designed to strengthen the leaders.
Paul came to serve. And in serving, he received no earthly glory or power, but his legacy is strong even to today.
Why are you doing what you do? Is it a passion to serve? Or a passion to be popular, to be the boss, to be honored?
Faith Venture 
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