These Hands

Acts 20:

34 You yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my needs and to those who are with me.

35 In all things I have shown you by example that toiling in this way we ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

In Acts 18:3b "they were tentmakers by trade", revealed what Paul did to make a living mainly so that he could serve the Lord without being a burden to the church nor to the saints, and yet be able to support the needs of the weaker saints. What a testimony! 

As I read this portion of the word and also from the message spoken by brother Watchman Nee in Church Affairs, Chapter 11,  the Lord enlightened me to see the proper way and attitude of serving the Lord. It is not for living that we serve the Lord, nor as a profession as in any secular job. We serve the Lord because we love Him, we love Him because He first loved us and has chosen us. We have no other option, even if there are many; we have no other way among the many ways; because the Lord has chosen us and captured us by His love. 

Since we love Him, we serve Him; and yet we are still man in the flesh with many physical, psychological and spiritual needs as any living and normal human does, so as not to stumble for these needs, we labor, even much more than any others, with "these hands" to make a living so that we can serve the Lord whom we love to the uttermost.

"These hands" also was a testimony of Paul; he kept himself pure in his motive in material needs in not being burdensome to and dependent on somebody else for his living, not that he did not have faith to trust in the Lord for his needs, but that in the principle of incarnation, labored as a tent maker to meet his basic physical needs and that of the needy saints with him. It was God who gave him the strength and the blessing to labor with his hands. 

Having spoken to by the Lord, it is my heart's desire too, as Paul, that as much as the Lord blessed, I would willingly labor with "my hands" trusting in the Lord to bless the fruit of "these hands" labor to supply the basic necessity and serve the Lord with all purity. This is not "not to have faith" but the exercise of faith to "till the ground that God may send the rain." Far be it from me that my service be dependent on or burdensome to some, instead I be a blessing to others both physically and spiritually, trusting in the Lord and having and exercising faith to bless and provide all my needs through "these hands." Having expressed this, it is upto the Lord to ultimately decide how I may serve Him. My faith, my trust, my provision, my Jehovah Jireh is and always will ever be God and Him only.

With all purity in heart, I may serve Him, laboring with "these hands" as He so ordained and blessed that the word of the Lord be fulfilled in me too that "It is more blessed to give than to receive."