Today's reading: Joshua 4; Luke 17
One of the parables Jesus tells in Luke 17 has, for a very long time, been a strong check on my pride and entitlement. Actually, I'm not sure if it technically counts as a parable... maybe just a metaphor? Either way, this is the paragraph I'm talking about:
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 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’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
I am a very prideful person and very easily think very highly of myself, my abilities, my accomplishments, etc. And this pride often follows me into my spiritual life. I look at all that I do or have done for the Lord and while I wouldn't say these words, my attitude says, "Man, I'm pretty good... God sure is lucky to have someone like me around." And more than just the attitude, it gives me license to sit back and spend the rest of my time on me because I've already served the Lord...
But Jesus' words are a powerful reality check that I often need. I am not the Lord's employee, I am the Lord's servant. I don't put in my 40 hours and then head home to spend the rest of my time not caring at all about my employer; my life, and every aspect of it, belongs to my master. I don't get to look at all I've done for the Lord and pridefully sit back, resting on my laurels, because even at best I have been a disobedient, lackluster, and half-hearted servant. The best I could ever do doesn't even compare to the least effort the Lord Himself could put in, and no matter how hard I think I've worked in the field, that doesn't mean I don't have work to do in serving the meal.
And that last point too, that the master doesn't thank the servant... my pride needs to hear that more often. The hardest a servant could ever work, and the best a servant could ever do is still just doing what they, as a servant, are supposed to be doing. You thank someone for doing something for you that they don't have to do or that goes above and beyond what is required. I like to think of what I do in service to the Lord almost as though I were doing the Lord a favor, but that's objectively not the case. I was an enemy of the Lord, on my way to eternal destruction for my own sin and rebellion, and of His own volition and out of His great love, He sent His Son to die for me and then initiated with me to draw me to Himself and give me of His Spirit in Christ. I now have an eternity in heaven waiting for me along with all the riches that come with being in Christ in this life, and this is all given to me for free. Nothing I could ever do could come close to comparing to what has been done for me. What I do for the Lord is not done as a favor for Him but as a response to what He has already done.
I am an unworthy servant; I have only done what was my duty.
Father, it is a privilege beyond words to get to be your servant and to have a role in the work you are doing in this world. You give our lives true purpose and eternal significance in Christ when we choose to walk in the good works you have prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Grow in our hearts a proper gratitude for getting to serve you as we do.
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