Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Elisa Morgan, and I called our reading, Serving at the Pleasure.

Andrew Card was the chief of staff to American President George W. Bush.

In an interview regarding his role in the White House, he explained, in each staff member's office hangs a framed statement of purpose.

We serve at the pleasure of the president. But that does not mean that we serve to please the

president or to win his or her pleasure.

Rather, we serve to tell him or her what he needs to do to do the job.

That job is to govern the United States of America.

In so many of our roles and relationships, we slip into people-pleasing mode rather than building

up each other in unity, as the Apostle Paul often urged. In Ephesians 4, Paul wrote,

Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers to equip his people for works of service,

so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith.

In verses 15 to 16, Paul cut through our people-pleasing tendencies,

stressing that these gifts should be expressed by speaking

the truth in love, so that the whole body grows and builds itself up in love.

As believers in Jesus, we serve people to build them up and to accomplish God's purposes.

Whether or not we please others will please God

as he works through us to create unity in his church.

Join me as I read from Ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 through 16.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers

to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up

until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become

...