Hello! I hope you guys are having an awesome 4th of July weekend/ week! It’s so weird that this week the holiday is right in the middle of the week, but really cool I must say!!!
It was my niece’s birthday last week, & we celebrated to the full, as we always do in my family lol. We love celebrating birthdays & especially when it’s for one of the kids! She was spending that day at camp, then we were picking her up & going to take her to eat!
Earlier that day, I found out she was the “hopper” for the day at summer camp (one of my friends is a teacher there and she texted me lol). She was basically one of the kid waiters in the lunchroom. On her birthday. This made me think… had this been an adult, I think most people would’ve been sad and maybe even offended by this fact. But, not kids. She spent part of her birthday at camp SERVING other people. Serving her peers. And she was happy as can be to do it!! To her, it was an honor! The world wants us to think that serving is beneath us. That it is not worth your time and that people who serve, are “less than”, and that we deserve to be served all of the time. But this could not be farther from the truth:
Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
–Matthew 20: 26- 28 NIV
We’re so busy nowadays taking care of #1, that we forget as Christians, we’re called to serve. Yes there need to be clear boundaries (I am huge on personal boundaries), & yes it’s good to take care of yourself because if you don’t, you cant help others either. But everything has a balance in life. It can’t always be all about us. We have to take time to help the people around us, because these are opportunities the Lord is giving us to serve. Chances for us to be a blessing to others in need & in turn, we will be blessed by the Father. We are always so busy, or looking at our phones, making sure we’re all caught up in social media. But we have to stop that bad habit & be more “in the moment.” Sorry to sound so terribly cheesy lol. We can’t notice what’s in front of us, the blessings and opportunities, if our mind is constantly somewhere else. I have to say, this used to happen to me a lot. Rather, I used to do this a lot lol. It was a huge source of my past unhappiness. The enemy wanted to keep my mind either stuck in the past, or constantly dreaming of the future without taking any real action. Constantly distracted by random things, and never focused on what really matters. Never living & enjoying the present moment & appreciating the blessing. When we ask God to remove the blinders the enemy has placed, in Jesus’ name, we can then take an active part in our lives & we can help others.
So you might be wondering what serving has to do with being equally yoked? Lol. Well, let me try to explain the concept of being “equally yoked” first. It has nothing to do with egg yolks like I used to think in high school (not equally YOLKED, equally yoked) 🤣😂🍳🤣 LOL.
This term is found in 2 Corinthians 6:14, and it actually applies to basically every relationship in your life, not just marriage:
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what [a]fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what [b]communion has light with darkness? — 2 Corinthians 6:14
I don’t know where I heard this, but it’s a great analogy. They explained being equally yoked like 2 oxen working on a farm, they are yoked together. Yoked meaning they are bound together, working. I am sure you’ve seen a picture of this of farms from the olden days lol. This is a scene that was very common in Puerto Rico where I am from! Anyways, so if you have 2 strong oxen, you will get a lot done! They keep up with each other & will go even farther together. But if you have 1 strong ox & one weak ox, the weak ox will bring down the strong ox, because the strong ox is carrying the weight of the weak ox. The weak ox is literally dragging down the strong ox. So it will slow down the strong ox’s progress, or even stop it from moving forward completely. So that’s what it means to be equally (2 strong oxen), vs. unequally (1 weak and 1 strong ox) yoked.
So when you’re married (when we single peeps get married lol), you’re working together for the Lord. You’re bound together by marriage (yoked), working for the Lord. You’re serving the Lord. That’s what marriage should be for us Christians. We belong to Christ, and we take care of each other, not just physically but spiritually as well. We want to make sure our partner is growing in Christ right?! So if you’re not equally yoked, you won’t be able to serve the Lord as well as you would if you were, if at all. It means you are putting in danger your personal relationship with the Lord. People who are unequally yoked, often stop serving. Because if I pick a spouse who loves the world, he probably would not be happy about me serving the church. He might be even embarrassed by it, as people of the world often are, and will probably discourage me from having a relationship with God, instead of encouraging it. So they become ineffective because they’re not thriving, they’re merely trying to survive themselves. They’re being weighed down by the “weak” ox. That is the result of being unequally yoked. Now, this does not mean that one day the spouse who doesn’t believe won’t come to Jesus and start serving. That happens. But there is just no guarantee. The Bible warns against being unequally yoked, for a good reason!! Being unequally yoked puts our relationship with God at risk, and our effectiveness as Christians and our ability to help others in the Kingdom. Like I said in my last post, we cannot give to others what we ourselves, do not have. So if our relationship with God is suffering, our service for God will suffer as a result as well.
I am not married. I say this, as a “warning” for other single people, to just follow the Bible and look for a person who also loves the Lord & shows it in their behavior and their lifestyle (this is not for people who are already married, that’s a different scenario). As singles, we should look for someone who is committed to the Lord, committed to serving and growing in Him. Also, if you’re looking for that type of person, we also need to BE this way too, because if we’re not, then that also would not make much sense lol.
Serving others is an essential part of loving others, which is why I decided to write about it as the last part of my love series. I believe if you are led by the Holy Spirit, you will just be naturally called to serve in certain areas. God will place you there. You don’t have to force it and you won’t feel like you hate it lol. I used to think that was serving, but it is not. You should want to do it, with love and joy in your heart. God knows our talents and he places us where He can use them. I personally feel like I’m still trying to figure out in some way, where I should serve in my church. I help with events and such (as part of the women’s ministry), but there is no “adult singles” ministry so for people like me, it can be hard to figure out. For anyone, actually. For right now, I just look for when they call people to help, & volunteer. It may seem like what you do is small sometimes, but trust me, it is not in the eyes of the Lord. Even the smallest thing, when done in His love, can make the biggest impact. Our work for the Lord is never in vain. We should follow the leading of the Holy Spirit when it’s telling us to help in a certain area of ministry or in a certain moment. Even the smallest things, when done in His love, can have the biggest impact.
God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. Hebrews 6:10
Lastly, let’s not forget, serving the Lord is a way to show our love for Him and worship Him too! So when we do His work, from the heart, and live our life in obedience to His word, submitted to His will and not our own, we are showing God that we love Him!
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. — Romans 12:1
I love writing these blog posts, because I always feel like God ministers to me through them. I always learn a lesson. I hope this has been a blessing for you too. God bless you, I hope you enjoyed my love series! Have a fantastic weekend!! Xoxo 💖💖
Happy Friday! It’s the end of a long week but we made it! Thank you Jesus! Lol. I haven’t done a music post in a while, it’s quite overdue, so I figured I would today lol. 🙌
