Luke 17:8

“Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?” Luke 17:8

We saw in the previous verse that a servant is not asked to come in and sit down when he has returned from a day of work, and now here we see that rather he is expected to continue on serving.  This again speaks to me of the fact that a servant has no rights.

A bondservant is a willing slave, one who has voluntarily given himself for life to his master. He is one who gives up his rights and lives a life of service to his master. I am a bondservant of Christ. I have accepted Jesus into my heart and thus I am no longer my own; I am His.

Too often we spend so much time clinging to our rights that we forget that Jesus, who is fully God, surrendered His rights and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us so that we might live. If He, who is fully God, willingly laid down His life out of love for me, I want to willingly lay down my life out of love for Him. Sacrifice comes from deep love, and I want to be so deeply in love with Jesus that I am willing to sacrifice all for the sake of serving Him.

In my last devotion I mentioned the first verse in the song “You Can Have Me”, by Sidewalk Prophets, and I think that the second verse and chorus also go really well with this devotion:

“If You’re all You claim to be, then I’m not losing anything. So I will crawl upon my knee, just to know the joy of suffering. I will love You enough to let go, Lord I give You my life, I give You my life! When did love become unmoving? When did love become unconsuming? Forgetting what the world has told me, Father of love, You can have me.”

It can be really hard to live the life of a servant, to give up all to follow hard after Jesus, and yet we must remember that it is so worth it. In the midst of the sacrifice, we must never forget why we are making that sacrifice, and most importantly, for whom we are making that sacrifice. Just like this song says, if Jesus is all He claims to be, which He is, then we really aren’t losing anything. Oh, in the moment it may feel like we’re losing a lot. We may feel as though we are losing everything we ever wanted, and yet we must remember that what we want is not necessarily the best, and that God loves us too much to want less than the best for us. He wants us to live a life of surrendered service not because He enjoys watching us suffer, but rather because He knows the joy that we will have when we live that life of service. I want to love Jesus enough to let go of everything else but Him. I want to love Him with my life, not just with my words. There is so much fellowship in suffering for Jesus – it is when we suffer for Him that we learn to really press into Him, and thus find sweet fellowship with Him. There is no greater joy than that which is found in fellowship with Jesus! I want my life to be one of sacrifice; even it means suffering, so that I might live in constant fellowship with Jesus.

Paul understood what it meant to lay down his rights in order that he might serve His king. In Acts 20:24 he wrote: “But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” I don’t want to count my life as precious to myself, to hold onto it as if it were of value to me. My life is precious and valuable only when it is poured out as a sacrifice to Jesus. It is in death to myself that I truly find life. It is in sacrifice that I truly find joy.

It is important to realize that a life of sacrifice, service, and surrender is only made possible by Jesus. I can’t do it by myself. On my own I am full of sin and want nothing more than to live for myself. It is only by the power of Jesus and by His grace that I am able to lay my life down before Him. It is not me working hard so that I might please Him, it is Him working in me. My part is simply to trust and take Him at His Word.

Oh, Jesus, please give to me a servant’s heart. I pray that I would not count my life as precious to myself, but that I would daily sacrifice it to You.

Application: Today I will pray for grace to willingly lay down my rights, and to do it with joy.