This post was last updated on January 14, 2026

Day 319, Year 1

Believing in the Lord Means To Serve Him

“Only fear the LORD and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.” (1 Samuel 12:24 NASB)

The word “truth” in today’s verse is the Hebrew word ’emeth. In my opinion, discerning with approval toward the valuable things is itself a form of serving God while believing in Jesus. This kind of discernment with choosing right is a continuous commitment to letting go of our personal wills. It is difficult for those who disobey God to follow the path of discerning and right approving. The phrase “sincere and blameless” (Philippians 1:10 NASB) does not mean that believers blindly take the rough with the smooth, but means that we serve God blamelessly. When we pursue “blamelessness” in God’s eyes rather than those of humans, we then have the correct starting point to fear God. Conversely, when people choose the second-best and discard the best, eventually and inevitably, they will pretend and deceive themselves, making them insincere.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13a), which usually involves some kinds of emotional transformation. We need to understand how God feels about evil so as to hate it. In this process, we understand His heart. In fact, to believe in God is to know Him, and to adjust our emotions so as to be consistent with His, and then to resonate with His feelings in serving Him. The more we love Him, the easier it is to feel His love. Love is a reciprocal relationship. When we are afraid of leaving Him, it will lead us to draw closer to Him and slowly feel His emotions. In today’s verse, the fear of God is to fear being separated from Him more than anything else. But in nowadays societies, many people are worried and are thus manipulated by fear. As a result, they turn away from God.

Today’s verse calls us to serve God with all our hearts. Serving God requires single-mindedness and wholehearted trust in serving Him. Let’s make this personal. There may be many times in everyday life when you feel quite far away from God. So, whenever you have a break or some free time, you can pray to God and keep your mind focused on Him. Furthermore, serving the Lord in truth means serving Him unconditionally. When people care about their own efforts and gains in return for serving God, they are prone to complain and be untruthful to God. Insincere service to God is an idolatry. In severe cases, some of them will encounter false Jesus, that is, evil spirits pretending to be Jesus, and be deceived by them.

Reflection questions:

1) Do you find it difficult to align your feelings with the Lord Jesus’? If so, how would you overcome it?

2) On the path of believing and serving God, is there any difficulty for you to not count the cost? If you have this difficulty, how would you overcome it by relying on the Lord?