Servants

There is no good connotation to servants. When I hear that I’m a servant it is naturally discouraging. The first words that come to mind are duty and expectation. It’s not exactly something I long for or something that excites me. 

So, when I hear someone tell me I’m a servant of Christ I have conflicting feelings. On one hand I love Him and want to serve Him. On the other I still feel the weight of those words, duty and expectation. Historically I’ve fought to simply change the way I feel about those words but recently my understanding of Christ’s sacrifice has changed the way I see this. 

When I’m given the righteousness of God through faith in Christ, I believe that all expectations have been met in the life and actions of Christ. The law has been fulfilled for me. I no longer live in a world of duty and expectation I live in a world of worship. I am completely free from the law. 

But yet within that we still owe Christ our life. How does that work? 

I believe the answer is found in who and why we owe. 

Who we originally owed a God and each other, we now owe a father. There is a huge difference in that. One may be for or against us the other is always for us. There is no better person to owe than a truly loving father. He is going to do all he can to help you and he is in it with you. 

Why we originally owed because of justice, we now owe because of love. This is extremely difficult for us to process. I love the show The Big Bang Theory, and in the show, there is a character named Sheldon. Sheldon has no concept of love. Every transaction for him is about justice fair play. For this reason, he hates gift giving. He feels that every gift comes with an expectation and therefore places you under an obligation to return the favor with an equally valuable gift. This is how most of us live our lives with God. We think that our obligation is about justice. It’s not. It’s about love. It’s not about an obligation to return something equally valuable. Justice has been satisfied. Now we give gifts because we love the father who has given gifts to us. 

We can’t live up to the gift given for us. God actually says it’s not possible. That’s not the point. Experience the freedom of His grace and give in whatever way you can today. He loves you and He cherishes your worship.