Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled A Heart for Service was written by Kim Yeloder.

A ministry in Carlsbad, New Mexico, supports their community by offering more than 24,000 pounds of free food each month to local residents.

The leader of the ministry shared, people can come here and we will accept them and meet them right where they are.

Our goal is to meet their practical needs, to get to their spiritual needs.

As believers in Christ, God desires for us to use what we've been given to bless others,

drawing our communities closer to him. How can we develop a heart for service that brings glory to God? We develop a

heart for service by asking God to show us how to use the gifts he's given us to benefit others.

In this way, we offer many expressions of thanks to God, for the abundance he's blessed us with.

Serving others was an important part of Jesus' ministry.

When he healed the sick and fed the hungry, many were introduced to God's goodness and love.

By caring for our communities, we're following his model of discipleship.

God's wisdom reminds us that when we demonstrate God's love through our actions, others will praise God.

Service isn't about self-gratification, but about showing others the extent of God's love

and the miraculous ways he works through those who are called by his name.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verses 12 through 13.

The service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people,

but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have

proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession

of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we want to make a difference in people's lives.

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