Are You A Servant or Just Serving?

Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? (Luke 17:8 TNIV)

It has well been said that you can test someone’s servanthood by treating them as a servant.   What you will find is that most “servants” are not grasping the true nature of a servant.  Anyone can serve someone else and even enjoy serving others because that’s their personality.  They are caretakers who love to take care of others.  Mothers wait on their children hand and foot not because they are servants, but because they are mothers. 

Serving is not the true test of servanthood. The real test of being a servant is how you act when you have done what you love to do, but it becomes expected and goes without appreciation, or you are asked to do more even in spite of all that you’ve already done.  And how you act is intricately tied to how you think about your act of service.  If we are ladened with ulterior motives – if I serve, I’ll be accepted; if I serve, I’ll be noticed; if I serve, I’ll be loved; if I serve, I’ll be served back; if I serve, …. you fill in the blank, then our service is not born out of a servant’s heart, but out of self-serving mindset.  The motive for service is where the rubber meets the road and separates the silver from the dross.  If our motive is simply to serve because that’s what Jesus told us to do and that’s what He did and we truly consider ourselves servants, then when people treat us as such, expecting us to wait on them hand and foot, asking for more than we want to give, and give nothing in return, then it will not affect our attitude one iota.

No wonder Jesus prefaced this area of Scripture with the assurance that if we have even a miniscule amount of faith, we can move the mountain of self that stands between us and the mindset of a true servant.

Whenever I am treated like a servant, I need to immediately check my attitude.  If I am offended, then I am walking in my flesh and not my spirit.  I will pray for God to grant me the tiny little bit of faith I need to suck it up and course correct.