Set Your Heart on Your Ways: Service as the Path of Life and Faithfulness
We often hear the same question: “Why is this happening to me?” It’s asked by people who genuinely love God, yet suddenly find themselves in a season of pressure—when difficulties pile up, disappointment sets in, prayers seem to go unanswered, and an inner voice whispers: “I’m doing everything right, but things are only getting harder.” In such moments, the pain isn’t just from circumstances—the heart grows weary, and the fire within begins to fade. It’s then that God calls us not to another attempt at “pulling ourselves together,” but to return to the path where the spirit comes alive again: to service.
It’s essential to grasp one fundamental truth: it’s impossible to compartmentalize life into separate “shelves”—God, family, and service—as if these were three independent domains. This framework simply doesn’t work. When we live this way, we can easily drift off course without realizing it, because God cannot be separated from daily life. Our relationship with Him manifests in how we build our homes, how we treat people, how we steward what’s entrusted to us, how we embrace responsibility, and how we serve.
Service doesn’t begin with a public platform, nor does it reduce to “visible roles.” Everyone has something to which God calls them, and most often it starts where no one sees you. Unnoticed steps of faithfulness, simple acts of love, hidden choices in favor of God’s ways—this is where service begins. And over time, it cannot remain hidden forever, because true faithfulness always bears fruit.
There’s a test that sounds quite direct: if someone claims to have been in God’s presence, yet afterward neither serves nor bears love, they’re deceiving themselves. God’s presence doesn’t end with beautiful words—it births movement in the heart. It grants the capacity to love, to cover, to support, to do good, and to become a pillar for others. Service is not an “add-on” to spiritual life, but its natural breathing.
God looks not only at what we do, but at the heart with which we do it. He will ask questions not about external impact, but about internal motivation: what was happening inside when you served? Was it for God’s glory or for yourself? Was there reverence or irritation? This is precisely why Scripture returns us again and again to the heart, because in God’s logic, the heart is the place where either growth or decline begins.
We are saved by grace, and this is the foundation of our hope. But grace isn’t given so that we remain in the elementary stages. God leads us further—into maturity, into responsibility, into the capacity to serve Him acceptably. Therefore, afflictions and pressure don’t always mean “everything’s wrong.” Yeshua said: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Sometimes there’s a process through which God leads us so we can see where our heart truly lies, and so something within us falls into its proper place.
We need to learn to ask ourselves honest questions: why am I going through this pressure? What is God doing in me? What does He want to heal, correct, strengthen? For God is good, and He is not the source of darkness. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Even when He permits circumstances, His purpose is to bring us to dependence on Him, to the renewing of our minds, and to a return to living obedience.
Repentance and the renewal of thinking are necessary, but one cannot circle the same mountain for years on end. Scripture calls us to move forward, to feed on God’s word, because without the word, the mind isn’t renewed and the heart isn’t strengthened. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). When we “eat” the word, it becomes not merely information—it becomes power that transforms us from within and restores us to the right path.
There are tribulations that come because we live according to the flesh, and they lead to sorrow and hopelessness. But there are also tribulations that come precisely because we serve—because the enemy hates worshipers. In biblical understanding, worship and service are inseparable: whom you worship, you serve, and whom you serve—to them you give your heart. This is why service becomes a spiritual frontline: it reveals to whom our allegiance belongs.
God teaches us to look at the outcome—not in the sense of a human race for success, but in terms of eternal perspective. When a person sees the goal, it’s easier to go through the process. Therefore Scripture says: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). He completed His path to the end, and in Him we see that faithfulness has a cost, but also bears fruit. When God’s glory stands at the center, service ceases to be a burden and becomes an honor.
This is precisely why the call sounds through the prophet: “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord” (Haggai 1:7-8). God isn’t simply calling us to “do something,” but to build the house of God, to serve with a pure heart. And He promises: “For them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Samuel 2:30). This isn’t about the fear of punishment, but about love that fears damaging the relationship with the One it loves.
The fear of the Lord in Scripture is not a shadow of terror, but the pinnacle of love and reverence. Of Yeshua it is said: “And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears… and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:2-4). This is the fear of a loving heart—the fear of losing intimacy, the fear of offending the sacred, the fear of neglecting what’s been entrusted.
Service begins with faithfulness in the place where you’re positioned: in family, in community, at work, in your city. Therefore the prophet Jeremiah says: “And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace” (Jeremiah 29:7). And further God adds encouragement to those living in the “captivity” of circumstances: “For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place… For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:10-11). Whatever “captivity” you find yourself in today, continue serving God—don’t let circumstances and pressure deceive you and bring you to a halt.
And here’s the conclusion to which we return again: service is not an obligation for the sake of checking a box, but a path on which God shapes the heart, strengthens faith, and prepares us for eternity. “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28). And therefore, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Colossians 3:17).
Pastor Oren Lev Ari