Are We Serving the World or the Word?

Growing up in the Middle East, we were brought up to believe that power and status came from being served.  Although the Middle Eastern culture has a lot of wonderful traits, one of the negative traits is being taught that people who had high positions and were in positions of power had it all made.  The pressure of growing up in a culture like this was always a burden: much was expected from you and you had to constantly strive to be the best you could be.  By that I mean that we were nurtured to believe that any position that didn’t put you in a place to be served was a failure.  If we we’re being honest, the world we live in today is constantly steering us towards believing that being served is better than serving.  The idea of serving nowadays, in a worldly sense, looks like a person who had succeeded in their career helping a charity once a year, or maybe donating to an animal foundation.

But we are “not of this world”.  That’s what the Creator of the universe said.  He said that I am a citizen of heaven: I may live in the world but I’m a doer of his word and I am the daughter of the Most High.  And as His daughter, I want to be more like Him.

Jesus said, “But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.  And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave.  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.”  (Matt 20: 26-28)

Our heavenly culture is the opposite of our worldly culture.  How humbling is it that the Creator of the universe stripped himself of all His glory and came to serve us; not only did He serve us, but He gave His life as a ransom for us.  What greater love is there than this?  What does that look like in practicality?

Recently my husband joined a meeting with our lead pastor.  They met with a leader of another church and he told me about a question that was asked at the meeting that really touched him.  The leader they met asked our head pastor what it would look like if our churches collaborated for a certain project, and our lead pastor’s response was, “It would look like us serving you”.  That’s what being a doer of the word looks like.

I want to be more like my Heavenly Father.  I want to serve because that’s what He said I should do.  I will serve the word and not the world.  So, let us put our pride aside and humble ourselves the way our Lord Jesus did.  Let’s walk with a servant’s heart, always putting the needs of others first, because that’s what our Father does.  So, today I ask you to check your heart: are you walking with a servant’s heart the way Jesus walked?