Serving the Lord
Serving the Lord
When you serve the Lord, are you paying attention to the attitude in which you do it? In the Parable concerning the ten servants (Luke 19:11-27), several different attitudes can be perceived. Before the nobleman leaves his new kingdom, he calls ten different servants and gives them all the same amount of money to invest in his kingdom while he is gone. What Jesus has given every servant is the same gospel and the same amount of time in a day to work with. The question for us is, which attitude do we serve the Lord with?
The first attitude is the negative attitude of rejection. The people of the kingdom oppose his rule so much that they make the effort to send representatives to proclaim they reject his rule. There is a little parallel of the first group with the seven servants who are never mentioned again, as though they simply ignore the master’s request to come and report what they have earned due to his gracious investment. A mina was equivalent to three months' wages1. There are some who hear of God’s call but only take it for earthly blessing.
The first two of the three servants show up at the request of the master with a return of 10 and 5 mina, which would have been 30 and 15 months' worth of money. Don’t miss that they gave it to the Lord because of the call of the master, and they were rewarded with positions of responsibility and authority in the kingdom.
The last servant mentioned came from a position of fear. This attitude produced an inability of the servant to use the treasure that his master had given him. The struggle for us as believers is that fear can be multifaceted. There is fear of rejection, lack of knowledge or fear of judgement due to our inability to live out the standard we believe in. The first two servants were motivated to live their lives for the Lord. Having this motivation built up the willingness to give what they had earned back to the Lord. Our outcomes will all be different, but our purposes need to all be rooted in Christ so we may find ourselves being a part of His kingdom and trusting in Him, not just to fill our needs, but as our reason for living.
When you serve the Lord, are you paying attention to the attitude in which you do it? In the Parable concerning the ten servants (Luke 19:11-27), several different attitudes can be perceived. Before the nobleman leaves his new kingdom, he calls ten different servants and gives them all the same amount of money to invest in his kingdom while he is gone. What Jesus has given every servant is the same gospel and the same amount of time in a day to work with. The question for us is, which attitude do we serve the Lord with?
The first attitude is the negative attitude of rejection. The people of the kingdom oppose his rule so much that they make the effort to send representatives to proclaim they reject his rule. There is a little parallel of the first group with the seven servants who are never mentioned again, as though they simply ignore the master’s request to come and report what they have earned due to his gracious investment. A mina was equivalent to three months' wages1. There are some who hear of God’s call but only take it for earthly blessing.
The first two of the three servants show up at the request of the master with a return of 10 and 5 mina, which would have been 30 and 15 months' worth of money. Don’t miss that they gave it to the Lord because of the call of the master, and they were rewarded with positions of responsibility and authority in the kingdom.
The last servant mentioned came from a position of fear. This attitude produced an inability of the servant to use the treasure that his master had given him. The struggle for us as believers is that fear can be multifaceted. There is fear of rejection, lack of knowledge or fear of judgement due to our inability to live out the standard we believe in. The first two servants were motivated to live their lives for the Lord. Having this motivation built up the willingness to give what they had earned back to the Lord. Our outcomes will all be different, but our purposes need to all be rooted in Christ so we may find ourselves being a part of His kingdom and trusting in Him, not just to fill our needs, but as our reason for living.
- Schreiner, Thomas R. “Luke.” In Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, 3:799–839. Baker Reference Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995.
Recent
Archive
2025
April
Categories
no categories
No Comments