A servant role

Luke 17.7  The servant

       The story from the Lord Jesus leads us to stronger ties of discipleship. What do I mean? The story is based on the duty of a bondservant or slave. He has finished his duties in the fields, and at the end of the day returns to the master’s house. He is then expected to serve the master at meal time.

     

       The lesson : We so often expect God to bless us “for serving Him faithfully”. We expect blessing on what we have done, blessing for doing it and a reward later on. The Lord Jesus said that true discipleship response is – “We are unworthy servants ( not in the sense of failing to serve, but in the sense of mercy and grace), we have only done what was our duty.”

       Elsewhere we learn that God is good, giving and generous. In the parable of Luke 12.37, the master rises to serve the faithful servants. However it is inappropriate to trade on the goodness and grace of God. We as bondservants ‘deserve ‘ nothing or worse. As a bondservant we can expect no more than our daily bread. As those who once, and repeatedly do offend the master by wrong actions , bad words, unhelpful attitudes, we have no rights, no right to assume the master’s generosity. The Lord Jesus would have us take the lowly place so that He might exalt us at His pleasure and His time.

   Let us remember we are saved by His Grace  -  unmerited favour.

   Take a moment to read Ephesians 2 again in the light of this story in Luke  17.7. It causes us to realise that we deserve judgement, but God’s mercy and grace have brought us into the ‘Master’s house’, not only to serve, but as children, sons, saints to worship! What should be the effect of mercy and grace ? Conceit and pride -  NO, NO, -  humility and gratitude.

By God’s grace – John McKee