Orange Moon Monday, July 25, 2022 "Servants"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"Servants"

    Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are servants of a Servant.  Moreover, a Servant also indwells our hearts.

    "The head of Christ is God" (I Corinthians 11:3).

    "Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am" (John 13:13).

    "The Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (I Corinthians 3:16)

 

    A hierarchy of authority exists in the triune godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  While equal in substance and being as God, the three Persons of Divinity function in terms of what might be called rank or standing.  "My Father is greater than I" declared the Lord Jesus Christ.  Moreover, both the Father and the Son are said to "send" the Holy Spirit, indicating authority over Him since those who send are, by definition, greater in position than those who are sent (John 14:28; 26; 15:26).  Thus, in God we see the Father as ultimate authority, and servanthood in the Son and the Holy Spirit as the most vivid expressions of devoted submission to authority.

   This constitutes believers as especially equipped to serve.  First, in the Lord Jesus, God provides the most beautiful example of humble dedication to the purposes and will of Another.  "I do always those things that please Him" said our Savior of His loving service to His Father (John 8:29).  Then, in the indwelling Holy Spirit, the servant nature of God actively dwells and works within us to empower our devotion to God and to people.  Indeed, when Scripture commands us to "by love serve one another," it means that we submit ourselves to the character of the Lord Jesus and the leading of the Holy Spirit as the dynamic means of humble service (Galatians 5:13).

   This changes everything in our understanding and response to the truth of our servanthood.  No longer do we see our role in any manner of burden, drudgery, or sterile responsibility.  We rather rejoice that to humbly serve flows from the wondrous current of Divine humility that ever streams in our born again hearts.  Of course, our flesh may resist the movement of the Son and the Spirit within us (Galatians 5:17). Knowing the truth of our present consideration, however, powerfully enables us to overcome resistance to the privilege of servanthood.  We rather find ourselves amazed by the wonder that through Christ and by the Holy Spirit, God allows us to know service to Him and others in terms of an eternally ancient glory of humility that has forever existed in Him.  "To live is Christ… as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Phillipians 1:21; Romans 8:14).

   The Lord Jesus bewildered disciples when He knelt before them, not long before He hung on the cross for them.  "Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?!" said Peter (John 13:6).  He did not know the servant His Master was, and has eternally been.  Nor did Peter know that another Servant would one day indwell His heart to birth Divine servanthood as the guiding and empowering nature of his human and redeemed spirit.  "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).  Yes, to serve God involves more, so much more, than we often consider.  A Servant inspires us by example.  A Servant indwells us to make possible our walk in the sublime humility of the living God.  We can do no better than to allow the greatest of all Scriptural passages regarding the subject at hand to conclude our consideration…

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

(Philippians 2:5-11)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father.

 (Galatians 4:6)

   

   

   

  

6575