40-Days to Servanthood: Day 5

[These daily readings during Lent are meant to help the people of our congregation--and whoever may be reading along on the blog--to grow into Christian servanthood. To tell you the truth, I don't really want to be a servant of God. That lifestyle is hard. But I want to want to be a servant of God and because God is gracious, He can work with that.]

God made you for servanthood.

Paul writes in the New Testament, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10).

Followers of Jesus Christ know that they have been set free from sin and death. But not many followers of Christ realize that by their faith in Jesus, they have also been set free for a way of life, a life of servanthood.

Why would we want to be servants? It has to do with our design. Psalm 139:13-16 tells God, “You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful..When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother’s womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there--you saw me before I was born...” We are all products of God’s careful design.

Built into us is a desire to be part of a community of caring in which each of us contributes something of ourselves to the good of others. This need for community and mutual servanthood is part of what it means to be created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26).

Back when human beings fell into sin, the first thing they did was point accusingly at others (Genesis 3:12-13). Their community with God and others was broken. God’s mission from that time has been to restore our impulse to community and mutual service. The greatest commandment, Jesus says, is to love God and to love others as we love ourselves. Servanthood is love in its work clothes.

God made you for servanthood.

Bible passage to ponder: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10).