The Servant
equality with God something to be grasped,
but emptied Himself by taking the form of a
bond-servant ...He humbled Himself by
becoming obedient to the point of ... death on
a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted
Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is
above every name, so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow,... and that every tongue
will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord....”
Philippians 2:5-11
Most of us want to be the served, not the
servant; the head, not the tail; at the front
of the line, not the back with all the others.
The humility of being a servant is not from this
world of pride. It must come from being broken
in our pride and rebellion of heart. It is a precious
and painful gift to us from Jesus, who became a
servant by laying aside all of the heavenly rights
and privileges of His royalty as equal with God to
become the living example of what it means to be a
servant. As a servant, we must submit to every order
of our Lord and Master, no matter the cost or what the
command requires of us, even unto death as was required
of Jesus. We are prideful and rebellious at the core of our
being. This can only be solved by our accepting that the
death of the cross of Christ included our old self with and
in Him. We must be led there by the Holy Spirit by faith in
the faithfulness of the Suffering Servant, Jesus, who laid down
His life on the cross and took us through that in Him, so that
our death in Him sheds off of us the lordship of the old self and
the devil and by being in the resurrection of Christ, we can put
on the new person. We must reckon as true that fact in our inner
person and accept it by faith, so that the resurrection life
of Christ can bring us out of death into new life, as a servant to
Jesus as our Lord, to serve Him and then others as He did for us.
