The slave of God (Part 1)
It has been a while that I hear Christians saying that they are not servants of God because they are in the New Testament and they say they are only the children of God. You will hear teachings that say that we cannot be called "Servants of God" because we are in Christ but in the contrary, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Joshua and all names known in the Old Testament were just servants of God. That is why in some churches, when they invite the preacher they say: "We invite the one who works with God" to avoid talking about "the servant of God".
Where does this qualification (one who works with God) comes from? It comes from 1 Corinthians 3: 9 " For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building "
As I often say, we cannot draw a conclusion based on a Bible verse, but we should always read the whole passage in order to understand the context. I will explain this verse in the second part but today I will show you that even when you become a child of God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, this does not prevent you to be his servant.
When the apostles wrote letters to various churches, they often began the presentation with their functions in the church. I will quote some examples:
In his letter, James begins by writing: " James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings". (James 1: 1)
In writing to Titus, Paul introduced his letter by saying, " Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness " (Titus 1: 1). Some of you will not like the introduction of Paul when he wrote to Philemon. He wrote: "Paul, PRISONER of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon, our beloved and our work companion" (Philemon 1: 1). Nobody wants to identify himself with a prisoner but Paul finds pleasure in himself as the prisoner of Jesus Christ. This means that it is a good prison for his good and for the glory of God.
As you can see it on the title of this teaching, if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you automatically became a child of God and you are supposed to be his servant, but we must go further because the Bible says that those who are unsaved are slaves of sin, but those who are saved are slaves of God. In writing to the Romans, Paul said: "But now having been set free from sin, and having become SLAVES of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life" (Romans 6: 22). Why these heavy words (Slave and Prisoner)?
I will talk about it in the second part
Chris Ndikumana
