John 12:25-26 - His Bond-Servants

John 12:25-26 “The Man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”

Following last weeks devotional, we continue on and look at what it means to be a follower of Christ. We looked at what it means to die to self, and live for Christ. Today we look at it from a slightly different perspective.

Christ said that if we are to serve Him we must follow Him. There is no other way to serve our Lord and Savior than to walk in His footsteps. Its actually a fairly obvious statement, but one with hidden depths that no one thinks about. If Christ were not here, how could we serve Him? It was the servant's duty to pay the bills, to load the cart, even to put the master's cloak on him. A servant poured the wine for the master to drink, carried the platter and served the master's food. A servant ensured that the house was cleaned, the garden neat and tidy, and the animals were fed. It short, it was the servant's duty to ensure that everything around the master ran smoothly enough so the master would never notice anything out of order or amiss.  We, as servants of Christ must be where He is so that we can serve Him. It is impossible to serve Him where He is not. That means that we need to keep ourselves in a right place with God, that we may continue in communion with our Lord.

A bond-servant was a trusted servant, a lifetime servant of the family in fact. They were known to have the master and his families best interests in mind at all time and were trusted with even the most important or delicate of things. A  bond-servant would not hesitate to throw himself in front of any danger, or to take any abuse instead of the master. A bond-servant was loyal to a fault, nothing would come between his master and their well-being.

For a modern day look however, we can compare it to a bonded-courier or a bonded-employee.  A bonded employee is one who is so valuable to the employer that they and everything on them are insured (usually for millions of dollars)! They are employees in whom the employer takes great pride and joy. While today we may not really understand the role of a servant or bond-servant as Jesus used it, we can make the [slightly flawed] comparison to a bonded-employee and understand it much better. That is what it means to serve Christ. Nothing can stand in our way to do His work! Not thieves nor robbers, families or children, friends nor enemies, nothing - not even death - must come between us and doing His will!

This week then, lets focus on being the perfect servants of God. If things are not right between us and Him, then let us make every effort to amend that and correct our faults. If we are hesitant, let us stride forward with boldness. If we are fearful, we must remember that He is right there with us, walking at our side! If we are boastful, lest us recollect that we cannot out-serve our Servant King. Most importantly of all, we must never forget that as we are serving Him, He is ministering to us and our needs.

Though the work of life be lowly,
Let me true and faithful be;
This the thought that makes it holy—
Christ has set the task for me.
                                      Jessi P. Bounds, 1915.