The Highway to Holiness
|
ARE YOU WILLING TO BE A SERVANT?
FIVE MARKS OF A BOND-SERVANT . . . .
- HE MUST BE WILLING TO HAVE ONE THING on top of another put on him, without any consideration being given to him. If we murmur about this happening to us, we are acting as if we had rights, and a bond-servant hasn't any!
- IN DOING THIS HE MUST BE WILLING not to be thanked for it. How often when we serve others and are not thanked... we have selfpity and complain.
- HAVING DONE ALL THIS, he must not charge the other with selfishness. A bond-servant exists to serve the interests if his master. He is to find in the selfishness of others a further opportunity to identify himself with his Lord as the servant of all.
- WE MUST CONFESS THAT WE ARE "unprofitable servants" with no ground for pride or self-congratulation. It is only the LORD JESUS, who dwells in us and who has made us willing.
"FOR I KNOW THAT NOTHING GOOD DWELLS IN ME, THAT IN MY FLESH; FOR THE WISHING IS PRESENT IN ME, BUT THE DOING OF IS NOT" (Romans 7:18).
- WE ADMIT THAT IN DOING and bearing what we have, in the way of meekness and humility, we have not done one stitch more than it was our duty to do so. God made man to be His bond-servant and sin is man's refusal. TO BE RESTORED TO GOD... WE MUST BE RESTORED TO THIS POSITION.
THIS IS THE WAY OF THE CROSS. Does it seem hard and forbidding, this way down? Be assured, it is the only way up. It was the way that the LORD JESUS reached the Throne, and it is the way by which we too reach the place of SPIRITUAL POWER... AUTHORITY... and FRUITFULNESS. Those who tread this path are radiant, happy souls, overflowing with life of their LORD.
WE CAN NOT MERELY RESOLVE that we will be humbler in the future. We need to be BROKEN in REPENTANCE as to what has already happened to what we already are. This will mean allowing the light of God to go through every part of our hearts and into every one of our relationships. It will mean not only asking JESUS to forgive us for our sins of pride... but asking others.
JESUS WASHES AWAY THE VERY SINS THAT HE DIED FOR... ON THE CROSS. AS WE CRAWL THROUGH THE DOOR OF THE BROKEN ONES... WE WILL EMERGE INTO THE LIGHT AND GLORY OF THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS... AND HUMILITY.
" WHOEVER WISHES TO BECOME GREAT AMONG YOU SHALL BE YOUR SERVANT, AND WHOEVER WISHES TO BE FIRST AMONG YOU SHALL BE YOUR SLAVE; JUST AS THE SON OF MAN DID NOT COME TO BE SERVED, BUT TO SERVE, AND TO GIVE HIS LIFE A RANSOM FOR MANY" (Matthew 23:26).
"IT IS GOD WHO IS AT WORK IN YOU, BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK FOR HIS GOOD PLEASURE. DO ALL THINGS WITHOUT GRUMBLING AND DISPUTING THAT YOU MAY PROVE YOURSELF TO BE BLAMELESS..." (Philippians 3:13).
|
