Not Serving God Is Worse

God is our Creator and Maker, the Source of all blessings. If we wisely worship Him and faithfully serve Him and keep His Word, we will surely be blessed. However, if we forsake Him and His Word, we shall be cursed.

Serving God Is Blessed: “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God” (Deut 28:1-2). Looking at the lives and ministry of faithful characters in the Scriptures or in Church History, or in our days we see that they were richly blessed by the Lord despite all the afflictions, difficulties, trials, opposition or persecutions they had faced in their lives and ministry. Shall we not wisely serve and worship the Lord our God faithfully unto death?

Not Serving God Is Cursed: “Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee” (Deut 28:47-48). May God help you and me fear Him and honour Him and His Word and always serve Him with joyfulness and gladness.

Not Serving God Is Worse: Our God is the good, loving, gracious, and merciful Lord and Master. Being His servants is a blessing, but if we do not want to serve Him, it will be worse. God said to Rehoboam and the princes, “Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak” (2 Chron 12:5). When they humbled themselves, God did not destroy them but mercifully granted them some deliverance, “Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries” (v 8) “So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (v 9).

God has the power to grant us His many blessings as well as to take away all His blessings from us. If we do not serve God, we shall not be left alone, but shall serve the enemies, and their service is surely worse. In the days of the Judges, when Israel forsook the Lord, “the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed” (Judges 2: 14-15). God gave Solomon a peaceful kingdom, but when he did not faithfully serve Him, “the LORD stirred up an adversary unto Solomon… God stirred him up another adversary” (1 Kings 11:14, 23). Our enemies nowadays are our sinful self, Satan, and worldliness (Rom 8:7-8; 1 Peter 5:8; James 4:4). If God is not with us and for us, we shall surely be enslaved to our sinful nature, be defeated by Satan and his temptations, and be drawn away by worldly values, mindset, entertainments, and pleasures. They are cruel masters only leading us to destruction and condemnation in Hell unless we humble ourselves in repentance and cry unto the Lord for help and deliverance.