Servanthood

Servanthood is something difficult to understand, a Christian principle that is often misunderstand by the world as being warped, cruel or abusive. It is contrary to human nature, because we by nature are intemperate, selfish, and self-serving. Obedience, submission, and sacrifice are difficult, painful, hard to swallow, and inpalatable. What is being required is indeed the highest and most difficult price - a price that is as good as death.

When we are called to follow Jesus, we are called to lay down everything - our lives, our ambitions, our rights, our previous existences... Such a calling is anthetical, but we have a precedent for this and that is the example of Jesus Himself. If Jesus did not do what He did, He could not have preached what He did.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(Php 2:5-11 KJV)


We do not need to learn to be leaders, but to be servants. It is far more important to be under the authority and leadership of God That is why the only Christian leaders are servant leaders.

Wash one anothers' feet, Jesus commanded. He emphasized that He came not to be served and ministered to but to minister.

The last shall be the first, the greatest least and the least greatest.

Again and again, Jesus lambasted religious hierachies, decimating the pedestrals that religious people tried to create for themselves. He scorned those who dictated "laws" and "regulations" and who put burdens on others' shoulders that they themselves could not carry. 

The teachings of Jesus call us to ultimate servanthood, to meekness, to humility, to brokenness, to the laying down of our lives and surender of our rights. To those who want to borrow from us, we cannot turn away. We are to turn the other cheek when struck, even. We lose our rights to self-defense, in deed and word.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
(Mat 5:43-45 KJV)


Indeed, in God's eyes, observance and worship (religion) is found in serving the poorest and weakest in society.


Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
(Jas 1:27 KJV)


Let us not forget that in serving the people we come across who are in need, we are serving Jesus. Jesus was truly a "man for others" as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put in. Indeed, he would not have been became a man it is was not for the Father.

Serving God essentially serving other people, because that's where God's love, grace and mercy extends.

We know that God's ways are in all ways superior to our ways. It is by being faithful in little, by serving the least and the lowest, that we are serving Him. In addition, Jesus in Matthew 6 commands us to pray, do charity, and fast in secrecy, away from the people we might be tempted to impress, even the religious and pious we wish to have of ourselves. What matters is what God sees, not from outward appearances, but from the heart.


This is not something only a select few Christians are called to do. It is the same calling and requirement that Jesus has upon all His disciples, something that can be applied even in daily life.

It is only from this perspective that we can view submission to authority, whether governments or otherwise. The epistles of Paul often speak of slaves' obedience to masters or wives' obedience to husbands. Indeed, Christians are called to "submit to one another", and we are reminded of our inherent and inherited equality in God where there is no distinction by gender, race, or hierachy - all have sinned, and the same God is rich upon all who call upon him. However, we are called to serve one another, love one another, to be humble and meek and lowly, and to lay down our lives for one another because Christ has done so for us.