Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

                                                                                                                   Isaiah 6:8 

Why is it that it seems too few people are willing to serve? Many profess the name of Jesus but how many of us are really using our spiritual gifts for the betterment of the church and the proclamation of the gospel? Isaiah was one who was willing. As God asked the question, “Who will go for Us?” Isaiah responded with a simple answer, “Here am I. Send me!”

When considering the reasons why so many are unwilling to dive into the world of faithful service to God, perhaps one of the most common answers given is that they feel unworthy. It is as if they have been convinced that Christian service is reserved for those who have somehow earned the right to participate. But Christian service is not for the perfect. If that were the case then no one would be able to take part in it. Our call to join Christ in the proclamation of the gospel requires only two things: (1) our having received salvation by faith and (2) a willingness to go.

First, let’s consider the criterion of being saved. Salvation comes from admitting that we are a sinful people, recognizing our need for a Savior, and then placing our faith in what Jesus did on the cross as the means by which we are redeemed, forgiven, and accepted by God. Once we experience this spiritual transformation (being born again, John 3:3) then we are given the Spirit of God as He comes to live on the inside of us. This Divine residence is unseen by the human eye but is easily observable by a change of attitude and lifestyle in the saved individual. Consider the following passage dealing with this most important issue of being saved:

…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 

                                                                                                               Romans 10:9-10

Once we have been touched by the love of God and have received salvation of our souls, we cannot help but want to proclaim that good news to everyone around us. But often, something happens after conversion. If we do not foster a daily love relationship with God, it is easy to slip into an attitude of complacency and, sometimes, even doubt. We can begin to feel spiritually weak and our excitement often wanes. And as this spiritual atrophy continues, we can find ourselves completely outside of the will of God for our lives, missing out on the blessings that come from following Him. So, even though we have been saved, we can find ourselves feeling unworthy, unloved, and unusable.

This is one of the most dangerous places to be spiritually because it opens us up for all kinds of attacks of the enemy. The strategy of our spiritual enemy is for us to miss out on all that God has for us. Even though he knows that our souls are secure in Christ, he can still wreak havoc on our lives and rob of us of our very security and purpose. Perhaps this is why we can hear so many professing Christians say that they are unworthy for service. The enemy has utilized their spiritual condition to his advantage. But scripture assures us that in whatever spiritual condition we might find ourselves, we are loved, fully equipped, and useable for kingdom work. Consider these powerful words regarding our usefulness in Christ:

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

                                                                                                            2 Corinthians 3:4-6 

Our adequacy for service is not found in ourselves. Our adequacy to serve God comes from Him. He is the One who makes us adequate to serve the new covenant. We need only be willing to say, “yes” to the task for which God calls us.

So Christian service requires us to consider whether or not we have been saved and then examine our level of willingness to step out in faith and experience a life that is abundantly beyond anything we could ever think or imagine. The power to live an abundant life in Christ resides within every converted believer in Jesus. We need to trust Him and know that He will bring to pass everything that He has promised us in scripture. So let’s put away every distraction and form of excuse and determine to make service to the King the top priority of our lives!

And He (Jesus) said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”

                                                                                                            Mark 16:15-16