The Price of Service

Dearly beloved and highly favored by God, the motivation to serve is one of the most powerful principles there is in life. The love of God in the renewed mind lived is the impetus for our service as sons of God.

God gave us free will and therefore the power to direct our own lives. If we willfully determine to make God’s Will, our will, we become what the Word of God describes as a “doulos.” We become sons that are committed to doing their Father’s will.

When a person, by the freedom of his will and motivated by the love of God, commits himself to do the will of God and serve Him, he realizes the greatest attainable freedom there is. This is one of life’s greatest paradoxes. The more committed a person is to do the Father’s will, the freer he will become.

Jesus Christ was the greatest servant that ever lived. He subordinated his will to do His Father’s will. He was the living portrait of self-sacrifice. He gave of himself completely. No greater love can a man have than to give his life for others. We are to follow his example of service.

Dearly beloved, someone must be willing to pay the price that service requires, else nothing can be achieved, whether in a person’s life, in a family, in a ministry, or in a society.

There is no such thing as something for nothing. Service involves sacrifice. Society can have nothing for which someone is not prepared to pay the price to accomplish it. It takes commitment.

Jesus Christ instructed those who followed him to count the cost before they committed to follow him. We should be willing to give of ourselves completely if we are to find the fulfillment of commitment. We should strive to follow his example of loving to the furthest extent possible.

Jesus Christ was a free will agent the same as we are; the key to his success was that he subordinated his will to do the Father’s will.

Jesus Christ did the works that His Father sent him to do. God did not possess him, nor use him as a channel; He worked with him, Spirit to spirit leading and guiding him. He worked in him to will and to do of His pleasure as He does in us.

In Mark 9, Jesus taught his disciples that he would be delivered into the hands of men, and they would kill him; and after that he was killed, he said,"I will rise the third day." His disciples didn’t understand what he was talking about and they were afraid to ask him about it. Instead, they argued among themselves which of them should be the greatest.

“He sat down, and called the twelve, and said to them: ‘If any man desires to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all [diakonos: one who runs to serve; a voluntary servant]."

Later on, James, and John asked him if one of them could sit on his right hand and the other on his left in his glory, and the others overheard it. It caused quite a stink.

The record is in Mark 10:35-45. Jesus said:

“You know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them [they lord it over them]; and their great ones exercise authority upon them [they use them]. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister [diakonos: a free will servant]: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all [doulos: a bonded slave]. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

At his last meal with them before he was arrested, tortured, and killed, he gave them an example of how to serve in love. He washed their feet; the most menial task a servant provided in a household.

He then said, “The servant is not above his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.”

His words did not change their minds for them. Later,at the meal they were still squabbling over which of them would be the greatest.

“And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, 'The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them [they lord it over them]; and they that exercise authority upon them [in the sense of oppressing them] are called benefactors. But you shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sits at meat, or he that serves? Is not he that sits at meat? But I am among you as he that serves.” Luke 22:24-27

Jesus taught them that they must have the meekness of a child, and the commitment of a servant if they were to be greatest.

Jesus Christ was God's Son, but in practice he lived as a servant, not as someone to be served. The servant is not above his master; he follows his example.

Later, at the same supper, he told them to love one another as he had loved them; quite a standard.

No service was too menial in ministering to the needs of those before him. Jesus loved his own to the furthest extent possible. Service takes commitment, and it requires sacrifice.

Beloved, we are all members of the body of Christ, the Church, and God has filled us with all in all of us, but the decision to serve is ours to make.

Each us should esteem our brother in Christ better than ourselves; we should have the same care for one another. Each of us should be willing to live with the love of God and serve with the operation of the nine manifestations of the spirit.

Those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the works he did, we can do also; and greater works than these because he went to the Father so that we could have the power from on high that enables us to do them.

One must be willing to serve if a service is to be provided.

Dearly beloved, Jesus Christ gave his all for us, and we should endeavor to give our all having the love of God to do the will of Him that called us to be His beloved sons. The servant is not above his master. We were born to live; we were born again to serve.

The Lord Jesus emptied himself of his position as a son and took on him the form of a servant. He humbled himself and became obedient, even obedient to submit to the humiliation and agony of dying on the cross; therefore, God highly exalted him above all in heaven and on earth.

We should think in the same manner as Christ Jesus thought; we should think and live as servant-sons.

The return of Christ for the Church gives us our motive to live and serve in love. His coming is what makes our lives meaningful, worthwhile, and inspires us to walk worthy of the calling wherewith He has called us. The hope is the reason we live to do their Father's will as His dearly beloved children, the same as did His firstborn.

Dearly beloved, may our Father say of us when he sends His Son, “This is my beloved son/daughter. Well done good and faithful servant." We are His dearly beloved and highly favored kids; he is coming!