{"id":1204,"date":"2010-02-23T07:44:34","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T15:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=1204"},"modified":"2010-02-23T09:19:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T17:19:06","slug":"the-determination-to-serve-2-23-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=1204","title":{"rendered":"The Determination to Serve 2-23-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
February 23, 2010<\/div>\n
The Determination to Serve<\/div>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . . \u2014Matthew 20:28<\/h2>\n
\n

Jesus also said, “Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). Paul\u2019s idea of service was the same as our Lord\u2019s\u2014 “. . . ourselves your bondservants for Jesus\u2019 sake” (\u00a02 Corinthians 4:5<\/a> ). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people.\"\"<\/a> But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a “doormat” for others\u2014 called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, “I know how to be abased . . .” (Philippians 4:12<\/a> ). Paul\u2019s idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference.\"\"<\/a> As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul\u2019s service was not love for others but love for his Lord.<\/strong> If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man . . .” (\u00a01 Timothy 1:13<\/a> ). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ.\"\"<\/a> Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 23, 2010 The Determination to Serve The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . . \u2014Matthew 20:28 Jesus also said, “Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). Paul\u2019s idea of service was the same as our Lord\u2019s\u2014 “. . . ourselves your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1204"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1223,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204\/revisions\/1223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}