February 23 The Determination To Serve
\n\u201cThe Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.\u201d Matthew 20:28<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s idea of service is the same as Our Lord\u2019s: \u201cI am among you as He that serveth;\u201d \u201courselves your servants for Jesus\u2019 sake.\u201d We have the idea that a man called to the ministry is called to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he is called to be the \u201cdoor-mat\u201d of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. \u201cI know how to be abased,\u201d says Paul. This is Paul\u2019s idea of service \u2013 \u201cI will spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it will make no difference.\u201d So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of Paul\u2019s service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men. <\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. \u201cI was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person\u201d \u2013 no matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 23 The Determination To Serve \u201cThe Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.\u201d Matthew 20:28<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s idea of service is the same as Our Lord\u2019s: \u201cI am among you as He that serveth;\u201d \u201courselves your servants for Jesus\u2019 sake.\u201d We have the idea that a man called to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-43204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-utmost","tag-my-utmost-for-his-highest","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsofgrace.com\/devotion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}