“I Want to Serve God My Way”
‘My Way’ is a famous song by Frank Sinatra that is sung at many non-Christian funerals. Indeed many people say, “I want to serve God, but I want to do it my way.” It’s a sentiment that expresses the desire for freedom, individuality, and a personalised spiritual experience. But serving God our way is not the same as serving God His way. If we are servants of God we serve as he wants.
Cain and Abel - Genesis 4:1-16
The story of Cain and Abel presents one of the earliest examples of people trying to serve God. Both brothers brought offerings to the Lord. Abel brought the best of the firstborn of his flock, while Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil. God accepted Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s.
Why? Abel offered the best because he had a real faith in God, but Cain offered what he thought was enough—his way, not God’s way. Rather than seeking to understand and change, Cain grew angry and eventually murdered his brother. This action proves that his heart was not set on serving God. The lesson here is that when we serve God according to our own desires rather than His standards, it can lead to frustration, it is indeed sin.
In today’s world, many people craft their own spiritual paths, picking and choosing parts of the Bible that suit them while discarding the rest. They might say, “I want to be spiritual, but I don’t think going to church is necessary” or “I follow Jesus, but I’m not interested in following all the commandments.” “I want to be known as a Christian but I want to hold on to my old habits of financial cheating, using drugs, pornography or the like.”
This is like treating faith as a buffet—selecting the parts we find appealing while avoiding the parts that challenge or convict us. Just as Cain wanted to offer his version of worship, people today often try to reshape faith to fit their preferences. But genuine service to God involves humility and obedience to His Word, not tailoring it to fit our lifestyle.
King Saul’s Disobedience - 1 Samuel 15
King Saul is another Biblical figure who tried to serve God his way. God commanded Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites and their possessions. However, Saul spared the best livestock and brought them back with him. He argued that they could be used for sacrifices, but God was displeased because of his disobedience. Obedience to God’s Word is always more important than religious practices.
Through the prophet Samuel, God told Saul,
“To obey is better than sacrifice” 1 Samuel 15:22
Saul’s way seemed pleasing to himself, but it wasn’t God’s way. His disobedience cost him his kingdom. The message is clear: serving God on our own terms, even with good intentions, can lead to awful consequences when we neglect His commands.
Imagine a successful businessperson who wants to be known as a Christian and decides to serve God through charitable giving. He gives generously to the church, but his business practice involves cutting corners and unethical behaviour. He may think his generosity compensates for his private behaviour, much like Saul thought his sacrifices would compensate for his disobedience. But serving God doesn’t mean offering God what we like while disregarding other aspects of His will.
True service to God requires integrity in every area of life, not just the ones that are easy or visible to others.
To serve God our way may seem appealing, but it often leads to frustration, compromise, and is itself sin. Like Cain, we will end up far from God, or like Saul, we may face consequences that could have been avoided through simple obedience.
God’s call is for us to serve Him His way, in obedience and surrender. This requires humility, faith, and a willingness to follow where He leads, even when it challenges our preferences. True freedom in Christ comes not from doing things, but in submitting to God’s perfect will.
A Major Problem
If I am honest, I have failed to live this way so many times and keep failing. Is their no hope that I can satisfy God? The answer is, on your own, ‘None at all!’. In the Old Testament a way was given to people to satisfy God, it was by sacrificing a perfect animal. This animal became a substitute who took responsibility for the person’s sin.
The sacrifice of an animal cannot, of itself, put anyone right with God. These sacrifices were all symbolic and looked forward to the day when God himself would atone for our sin. We can be ‘at-one’ with God only because of Jesus’ bloody death.
Just imagine the court of priests in the tabernacle or temple when sacrifices were made. The animals would be led or pulled in. Some would cry out and others would undoubtedly defaecate on the floor. When they were killed, by cutting their throats, the blood would splatter around on peoples’ clothes and fall on the floor. Yet they were worshipping in the way God had ordained. How strange this is to modern ideas of worship. This was very different to the beautiful music and liturgy offered in many churches and cathedrals or the rousing rhythmic praise seen in some charismatic churches. It is not that such magnificent events are not awe-inspiring, therapeutic and helpful but they cannot act as a substitute for the cross of Christ in satisfying God.
There are people who think that because they belong to a church with ‘right beliefs’ and regularly think of and praise God and try to live good lives they will be accepted by God. This however is never enough to ‘satisfy’ God.
Even the Old Testament prophets had to remind people that outward religion, however theologically correct, could not make man acceptable to God. The prophet Amos reminded God’s people that their services, offerings and singing did not impress the Lord whatsoever. He wrote,
“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. ” Amos 5:21-24
Imagine the bloody sacrifices of animals in the temple. The worshipper would bring with him a perfect animal. He would put his hand on the animal’s head and symbolically transfer his sin and that of his family onto the animal. He would then kill it by cutting its throat. The priest would collect some of the blood which would then be poured out onto the altar where the burnt offering was subsequently made. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, some of this blood would also be poured onto the altar of incense too.
Why was this what God wanted? A thinking Jew must have often pondered this question. How could the death of a lamb give forgiveness of their sin? This dilemma was partially answered when Isaiah foresaw that the time was coming when God’s servant king would enter his world as a baby and would die to carry our sins.
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way. and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6
God had ordered these sacrifices to remind people that no-one is able to satisfy God’s holiness by themselves but that God himself would provide a way.
There was no other way that the Almighty Holy God could be satisfied. Our word ‘satisfaction’ is derived from the Latin ‘satis’ and ‘facere’. At school a child has to achieve a ‘satis’ level which, in Latin, means ‘enough’. ‘Facere’ means ‘to do’so God is only satisfied because Jesus has ‘done enough’ to appease God’s wrath at man’s sin. Christ’s death made atonement for our sins and we can now be united or at-one with our creator. God reckons us as being righteous, if we are genuinely and personally following Jesus, because of what Jesus has done and for no other reason. This is the only way that God can be satisfied with us. Since the time of Anselm, a monk who became Archbishop of Canterbury (1093 to 1109AD), the Christian church has recognised that the death of Christ resulted in God being ‘satisfied’.
This explains why ‘blood’ is such a major theme of the New Testament. The ‘blood of Christ’ is short-hand for the sacrificial death of Christ. Consider this passage,
“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” Romans 3:25
Let us seek to serve God not by our own wisdom or convenience, but by fully surrendering to Jesus who has satisfied the wrath of God on our behalf. When we surrender to Christ, he gives us his Holy Spirit to enable us to live in obedience to him. When we fail, as we will on occasions, our only hope is to return to the Lord Jesus and beg his mercy.
We cannot serve God our way, that is the path to hell. As Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us,
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
BVPalmer
October 2024
