Devotion: Make Me a Servant
And Mary said, Behold
the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:38
Today I was treated like a servant and I didn’t like
it. Instead of a submission in joy,
instead of seeing an opportunity, I felt unappreciated. The thoughts began in my head, justifying why
I should not make the situation easy for the recipient of my help. I knew I needed to come to God to sort out my
pride issues.
Daily when I go to work, I pray for the students, families,
and staff members God has for me to serve.
I pray that I will see these as opportunities and not burdens. I have to pray that when I am treated like a
servant, I will respond in humility as I am constantly tempted to make much of
myself. It is a prayer I’ve had to pray
daily as I am busy and tempted to focus on my tasks, and not see the people
that need me as interruptions to my work.
For the reason I am there is for those interruptions, God’s divine
appointments for me and I am to react with gentleness and kindness. To think of others and their needs as greater
than my own. I discovered this week that
I do a good job of leaning on the Lord’s protection for my heart at work, yet I
ignore that same area in my personal life.
I thought of Mary, whose story is the focus of this holiday
season. She gave up so much to submit to
the Lord’s plan of how Jesus was to arrive-in a cloud of scandal. And she was
the object of their mocking. From the
outside looking in, Mary was promiscuous.
Only she knew that she had been with no man. To endure the scorn and ridicule must have
been a affliction. Yet she was a
bondslave of the Lord. A bondslave is a
special kind of servant. It means that
you are serving by choice, not forced into the relationship. It tells of Mary’s heart and why she was
favored of God.
When I respond brusquely to the times I am called to serve,
it reveals my heart and what I fear. I
feared this morning that my gifts weren’t valued, meaning I wasn’t valued, so I
responded in bitterness. I was
encouraged this morning by Exodus 23:25: But
you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water;
and I will remove sickness from your midst.
My sickness is my sin and I need healing. He will provide for me if I let him, when I
try to protect my own interests I am far away from Him. For He alone is our healer (Ex 15:26).
The cross-references I read of this verse all described
serving with a whole heart. If you don’t
know Jesus, your heart isn’t whole. It
is broken and nothing you can do will ever satisfy, bind up its hollow emptiness. The other gods you seek will only reveal a
dull echo in your inner person. The
Bible says if you serve Him and not yourself, His blessings will overtake you
(Duet 28:2). What an amazing
promise. His grace for us is so much
that it will cover and envelope us!
But as Joshua 22:5 says we must be careful in how we serve. Our daily default is selfishness. I pray that like Mary, we can be open to
serve in any way we are called. Reflect
on this concept and prepare your heart to pray and journal with this
song-Breath of Heaven by Sara Groves.
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