Servanthood

Pride is repelled by the idea of servanthood. Today, everybody wants to be anything but a servant. A popular children's game in my day was called “Masters of the Universe.” That has also become the theology of many Christians.

We arrogantly quote this scripture verse, “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7, NKJV). What Paul was really saying is that a son who has been taught correctly knows that he is legally the king's son with all rights, but he so loves his father that he chooses the role of a servant. Paul also said he was “a bondservant” of Jesus Christ (see Romans 1:1), and James called himself a servant of God and the Lord Jesus (see James 1:1).

A servant has no will of his own; his master's word is his will. The cross represents the death of all my own plans, ideas, desires, hopes, and dreams. Most of all, it means the absolute death of my own will. This is true humility. “He humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). Jesus had told his disciples, “My food (fulfillment in life) is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). In other words, “I refuse to take matters into my own hands. I wait to hear every direction from my Father!”

One of the biggest traps to Christians is a good idea that is not in God's mind, a good strategy which is not from him, a well-conceived plan that is not his. Can your desire survive the cross? Can you walk away from it and die to it? You must be able to say with honesty, “Lord, maybe it's not the devil stopping me, but you. If this is not your will, it could destroy me. I give it up to the cross. Do it your way, Lord!”

John wrote, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Every true Christian must be willing to say, “I really want to do his will.