Dialed In: Reaching Your Full Capacity as a Man of GodSýnishorn

The Servant

The greatest act of service is articulated in Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

But God.

The night before Jesus’ crucifixion the disciples gathered for a meal, just moments before Judas’s betrayal, but God washed the traitor’s feet anyway—the same feet that would run to those who would kill Jesus. In this context, John 13:12-15 is one of the greatest examples in the Bible of a man who lives at full capacity:

So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.'

Whatever it took, whatever the price, Jesus would not leave the earth without serving humanity—even His enemies—at the cost of His life. And in so doing He gave us an example to follow:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7)

Being a servant is what sets a God-fearing man apart from a poser. A man and everything around him will change once he chooses to move from being an anonymous observer in the church bleachers to being a player in the game.

Jesus represents everything we ask men to do. The dialed-in man imitates the Lord Jesus Christ and puts on the servant’s towel.

How did Jesus model servanthood? What Bible passages can you think of that reference Jesus as a servant? Consider Matthew 20:26-28 and Philippians 2:5-7.