A servant for God? Oh, sure, sounds great! A slave for God? Eerrrrtt! Hold up, I didn't sign up for this.
As a self-professed control freak, the sound of slave makes me twitch. But Paul in Ephesians 6:5 speaks about a doulos, a slave of Christ. Doulos was a servant by choice, which we are called to be.
Meet Maria. She is a woman I met in Mexico who is truly a servant. From the moment I met her, she smiled a wordless greeting and motioned with her head that we were welcomed, then continued to complete her business. She's free to come and go but she chooses to serve. She chooses to remain. She chooses to complete the task set before her. Yes, this is her job. But her humble servanthood and volitionary choice to serve is a testament to her loyalty.
Maria never once complained about her job; in fact, she valued and appreciated what she did. Which illustrated Mark 10:43-45 in real-time, ...whoever wants to be great among you must be a servant, and who ever wants to be first must be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve, and give his life a ransom for many.
How can you serve today? Are you serving with your whole heart? Can we be a doulos to all we encounter? Be like Jesus: serve.
12 comments:
What a great topic to meditate on today. There are so many areas in my life that I tend to want to control rather than serve in!! Thanks!
thank you bi!! Convicting to me as I work, I don't want to just work but serve. love you!! :)
@kim: nice to meet you! thanks for the love...
@not-so-anonymous: i love you too. eeek! i had a dream last night and you'll die when i tell you what it's about!!!
Fantastic thoughts. So many times we talk about serving Jesus but never stop to think what that truly means for us!
Hi Bianca,
sometimes I think I am a slave of my boss, but I won't be... ;-)
But what I know is, that I am a servant of my family and that with all my love....
With a big hug from here to there,
Markus :-)
P.S. Wish you furthermore a good journey...
This was great...my dad has been preaching on this recently. I know I'm not serving with my whole heart and need to work on it. Thanks for the reminder ;)
beautiful.
B,
Great post!!! I'm choosing to be a Doulos! Doulos! Doulos!!!
June
Great post Bianca:
Being a servant of God we may think is the easiest thing to do but, sometimes we ended up serving the man pleasing the men and not the lord, I have seen too many people like that, you see them 24/7 at church and they are good at church but the moment they get out of there is like the mask of serving is just to be wear at church. That is so sad and I may be wrong it is so hypocritical to pretend to serve just to be noticed I rather not to serve and being tag as bad Christian that doesn’t get involved, I couldn’t live a lie as big as that, pretending I am happy just at church and the moment I get to the car I have seen people starting to talk trash about the service performance of others, when you hear something like that.. I got sad very sad.. Who are you perfect lady to say that my service is not up to your standards who told you that what you do is pleasing GOD? I have been so disappointed when I see people serving and smiling at church specially when they are family and you know them well, they are good just with people from church other than that they cannot have compassion with the rest of us.. Why? I do want to serve THE LORD, but when I see that I get scared because I don’t want to fall into that circle of people that want to be involved on everything just to be preached as “good person”
that's a great reminder...sometimes i feel like a slave, but it's all in the heart...instead of looking at it like that, i need to look at it as being a servant...i know I am not a good slave, and an even worse servant...gotta work on that harder:)thanks for the post...
I love your perspective on this. Sometimes I pick and choose whom I serve and whom I don't. This encourages me to be a doulos to ALL I encounter. Thank you!! I will take this message to heart!
As I'm scrolling through your blog, I feel compelled to stop reading blogs and go crack open some of God's word! THanks for that! He is so happy with you!
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