Servanthood

SERVANTHOOD
Theresa Brunais

To submit and serve others from the head takes strong self discipline.

To submit and serve others from the heart takes a great deal of love.

I believe this is the secret to being a good servant. You cannot talk about servanthood without talking about love-love supplied by the Holy Spirit.

Ask the Lord to cause your love to increase and abound, for Him, for others, and for your family. He will flood your heart-but don t dam the flow! There will be a difference in your attitude and actions towards others. God can make the change quick and the trip gentle. Some lessons are painful. You will have more patience, compassion, peace and joy and will have a strong desire to help, serve and show love toward others-people you know and those you do not.

What a difference! Serving because you have to (slave) and serving because you want so much to (helper)!

When you catch yourself grumbling about picking up something your spouse (or sister/brother) always leaves behind, think of several things you love about them. If you let your love increase and abound while thinking these things-you become almost thankful for the opportunity to pick up for them-serve them.

God in His mighty power and mercy will do great changes in a short time if you ask and desire this!

Really feel love.

Show mercy from the heart.

Serve others and see their need.

And He will give you the heart of a servant!

2 Cor. 3:5&6 Not that we are adequate in ourselves (love) to consider anything as coming from ourselves (love), but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter (law head) but of the Spirit (heart); for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.---- We will never have enough self discipline (head), but of the Spirit- we can have enough love (heart).

Joshua 22:5 "Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul." ----serve Him with all your heart and all your soul- your "want to ", your desire need to—not "have to ‘~ work, hurts to obey

Gal. 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

John 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love on another, just as I have loved you."----Is a command-but obey from the heart vs. obey from the head.

Romans 12:9&1O Let love be without hypocrisy (heart). Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor.

Eph. 5:2 Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

1 John 4:7-12 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

1 Cor. 13:1-9,13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1ff have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part... .But now faith hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.