May 31st, the gain of serving God.

They shall be servants to Him that they may know my service and the service of the kingdoms

of the countries.

Serving God is utterly different from serving anyone else.

God is extremely jealous that we understand this and enjoy it.

For example, he commands us, serve the Lord with gladness, Psalm 100, verse 2.

There is a reason for this gladness. It is given in X 1725.

God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind, life and breath and everything. We serve him with gladness because we do not bear

the burden of meeting his needs. He has no needs. So serving him can't mean meeting his needs.

Instead, we rejoice in a service where he meets our needs.

Serving God always means receiving grace from God to do what we have to do.

To show how jealous God is for us to understand this and glory in it, there is a story in Second Chronicles 12, Rehoboam, the son of Solomon who ruled the southern kingdom after the revolt of the ten tribes,

chose against serving the Lord and gave his service to other gods and other kingdoms.

As a judgment, God sent Shishak, the king of Egypt against Rehoboam with 1,200 chariots and 60,000 horsemen.

2. Chronicles 12, 2 and 3.

In mercy, God sent the prophet Shimeai to Rehoboam with this message.

Thus, says the Lord, you abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak,

2 Chronicles 12.5. The happy upshot of that message is that Rehoboam and his princes humbled

themselves in repentance and said, The Lord is righteous, second chronicles 126. When the Lord saw that they humbled

themselves, he said, they have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them, but I will grant them

some deliverance, and my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.

Second Chronicles 12, 7.

...