A bondservant of Christ is continuing to learn how to abandon and even avoid seeking and living for the praise and recognition of others, but to instead focus on living for God’s affirmation and “well done.” [See previous blog post on October 5th]. Our heavenly Father will be greatly glorified when “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” [Philippians 2:11]. In the interim, a bondservant will seek to lift up Christ by his or her actions, attitudes, and words. In addition, a bondservant will look for ways in which to serve others as their bondslave. How does this playout?
Becoming a bondslave of another has the potential of being seriously misunderstood in its application. I am not, of course, speaking of a person putting him or herself under the dominion and literal or emotional enslavement of another human being. Doing so would cause such a “slave” to become a “non-person” and create a very unhealthy relationship both for the “master” as well as the “slave.” Perhaps some of those who become involved in “cultic” subcultural groups become unwittingly trapped resulting in a mental and emotional enslavement to the cultic leader. Some personalities may be more prone to voluntarily becoming subject to that type of emotional or mental enslavement, be it political, religious, or something else. But I am not promoting such mindless subjection of oneself to the will and control of another human. I am suggesting that our rational and voluntary service to or for the benefit of others is part of our calling of being a bondservant of Christ. Serving Him means serving others. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews equates loving and serving God with serving people [e.g., “the saints”]:
For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints (Hebrews 6;10).
The source of this suggested trait is taken from the words of the Apostle Paul:
For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants [Gk.=doulos or slave] for Jesus’ sake (II Cor 4:5, emphasis added).
Paul’s view of himself in relation to the believers at Corinth, and even the other apostles, does not evidence a “one down” by Paul, a “woe is me” or “I am a nobody with nothing to contribute.” Instead he evidences a rather confident spirit about who he is and the role he is to play in the Kingdom:
For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am [i.e., an apostle], and His grace toward me did not prove vain [ie. empty or useless] ; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me [I Cor 15: 9-10, emphasis added).
Paul appears possessed of a remarkably healthy wholeness of soul when he is able to freely acknowledge he does not deserve the title or role of an apostle because of his past persecution of the church. But in spite of his ignorant and misguided past, he is able to move on [“forgetting what was behind and pressing on…” Philippians 3:13-14] and to seek to serve Christ his Lord with persevering zeal empowered by the grace of God.
In essence we are a “slave-on-loan”. We belong to Christ as His bondservant/slave, but in serving Him he “assigns” us to serve and minister to other people . Occasionally an employee of a company will be “loaned” to another firm or company to provide services to that other firm based upon a contractual relationship between the two companies. As slaves of Christ, our “payment” does not come from others as much as from Christ Himself. Our sometimes “western” mindset of fierce independence makes it difficult for us to even consider serving others with such devotion as might be the case if we were that other person’s actual slave. But our calling is not “Western” or Eastern, or Northern or Southern” but rather “upward” [Philippians 3:14-“I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”]. And part of that “upward” call is to give our lives in service to others. “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” [Matthew 20:28]
Are you willing to be “loaned” by your Master to others for the purpose of serving them as a way of serving Him?
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