(In which I get a little bit worked up about Gospel preaching.)
Do you REALLY desire to serve God?
What kind of answer is being fished for? As if coming up with a single counter-example obviously makes the answer “no” and the questioner a justified accuser? Of course I desire to serve the Lord, but it is always a mixed bag. With the apostle Peter it was a mixed bag. Mother Theresa was a conglomerate of desires and motivations, some holy, some dark. The Pope is both wise and foolish. Who serves God, just the angels? No. Sinners. That’s us. Really rescued ones too. My service to God is always tainted, for what I wish to do, I do not do, and that which I hate, I do (St. Paul).
The Lord does not need our service. He can make bread out of rocks (he didn’t). He can make bread out of air (he did). He doesn’t “need” us to bring in the wheat from the white fields since as if it were too heavy for him to cut down and lift. He can raise up children of Abraham from the stones on the ground. He can build a man that lives 1000 years out of a heap of dirt. The Lord must want something else. We only think our service and sacrifice is for Him. It is for us. For each other. What does He desire? He loves his children with an undying love. He desires that we, his little sons and daughters of God, turn our hearts to him. For such as this were we, are we, rescued.
Do not tell lies about God. Do not tell his children that their father does not love them. Do not imply that because their service can be proven to be trash, that they, by extension, are also trash. This is the rhetoric of the accuser. Do not be his mouthpiece. Speak the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the severing of a cold iron chain rather than a pep talk.