Heart Tracks - The Servant

"For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as One who serves." Luke 22:27....."For God so loved that He GAVE....." Ann Voskamp

How many times have you and I read the above Scripture and just passed over it? When we think of being a servant of the Living God, and of His Son, Jesus Christ, just how do we process all of that? When we think on what it means to serve Him, how much of that really comes down to the various jobs we do "at church?" To what degree is servanthood really our lifestyle? Are we really prepared, eager to be, "washers of feet" not only to one another, but to a world filled with those whose feet are covered with it's filth?

We're not lacking for "big vision" pastors and people in the church. Cast a great "vision" and then get people on board with it. We want people to sign on to helping us achieve the vision. There is certainly a place for vision, if the vision is truly from Him and not our own fleshly desires. But how much of it contains a place for true servanthood? How much of the vision is about "building the church" rather than serving it, and those it seeks to reach for Him? What would happen if the people of God truly engaged their world as did their Lord....as those who had come among as ones who serve?

I have in my prayer journal the question, "Do I have the strength to be nothing?" It came from the writing of another who asked the same question of themselves. To be nothing for Him requires a strength that can only come from Him. The One who became nothing in order to offer the human race everything in Himself. Do we have such strength? Do we dare to engage our world as ones who are among them to serve? What would be the result if we began to see ourselves as the servants of all those we come into contact with, wherever we are, whenever we are there? What if we started seeing people not as those we can get into our churches, but as ones we can minister to in some way, whether they ever come to our church or not? And whether they have anything to offer or not?

So many of us move in a spirit of entitlement. We are loud in our criticisms of living in the midst of a generation who see themselves as entitled, while being blind to our captivity to that same spirit. Others exist to serve us. Churches exist to serve us, and so do the people in them. We then take that attitude outside the walls of the fellowship, and it marks all of our interactions with the world beyond them. We spend our lives "sitting at table," and never notice that Jesus is not sitting there with us. He's busy washing feet.

This is not a call to look for more good things to do. It's a call for a heart transformation that can only come about through Him. A transformation that changes our attitudes, the words we speak, and how we see the people around us. They are no longer there for us. We're here for them. We speak blessing. We seek to bestow blessing. We keep decreasing....to nothing, while He, the Servant, increases in everything. He loved so much that He gave....and gives. And now, because of Christ in us, so do we. So do you.....and I. But do we?

His servants move about unseen....by all but Him. And as they do, they bless....and He increases through them. And the Kingdom grows, whether we can visibly see that or not. This day, and every day, we will go out among them. Will we do so as entitled recipients, here to receive all things......or as the servants of all, here to give all things? Do we have the strength to be nothing....so He can be everything?

Blessings,
Pastor O