What does the Bible say about serving the lord?

Top passages, ranked by readers

Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible

• Matthew 6:24 13 votes

  “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.

• Malachi 3:14-18 9 votes

  You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God,’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions and that we have walked mournfully before Yahweh of Armies? Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’ Then those who feared Yahweh spoke one with another; and Yahweh listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared Yahweh and who honored his name. They shall be mine,” says Yahweh of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.

• Joshua 24:15 7 votes

  If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”

• Proverbs 3:1-35 5 votes

  My son, don’t forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for they will add to you length of days, years of life, and peace. Don’t let kindness and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor, and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh, and depart from evil. It will be health to your body, and nourishment to your bones. Honor Yahweh with your substance, with the first fruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of his correction; for whom Yahweh loves, he corrects, even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights. Happy is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gets understanding. For her good profit is better than getting silver, and her return is better than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies. None of the things you can desire are to be compared to her. Length of days is in her right hand. In her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Happy is everyone who retains her. By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths were broken up, and the skies drop down the dew. My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion, so they will be life to your soul, and grace for your neck. Then you shall walk in your way securely. Your foot won’t stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down, and your sleep will be sweet. Don’t be afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it comes; for Yahweh will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being taken. Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it. Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again; tomorrow I will give it to you,” when you have it by you. Don’t devise evil against your neighbor, since he dwells securely by you. Don’t strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm. Don’t envy the man of violence. Choose none of his ways. For the perverse is an abomination to Yahweh, but his friendship is with the upright. Yahweh’s curse is in the house of the wicked, but he blesses the habitation of the righteous. Surely he mocks the mockers, but he gives grace to the humble. The wise will inherit glory, but shame will be the promotion of fools.

• Matthew 20:28 5 votes

  even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

• John 4:34 5 votes

  Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

• John 15:1-27 5 votes

  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you. “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples. Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. “I command these things to you, that you may love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me, hates my Father also. If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father. But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

• John 3:3 4 votes

  Jesus answered him, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom.”

• John 3:16 4 votes

  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

• Mark 10:45 4 votes

  For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

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