Whom you will serve?

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 (NIV)

Growing up in Sunday school the above verse from Joshua is one I heard many times. I remember memorizing the last part as a young boy. I thought of this verse recently as I was thinking about servanthood. Something that struck me is that it doesn’t say “choose this day if you will serve” it says “whom you will serve”. All humans were made to be servants. Or, just as true to the original language, we were all made to be slaves. That is really hard for us North Americans to take. We have had our idea of being a slave shaped by racial slavery (more on this in the next blog). The bible clearly tells us that no matter how hard it is for us to stomach, we are slaves and we don’t have a choice about it. It doesn’t say choose if, it says choose who. Romans chapter 6 also deals with the “whom, not if”:

16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Romans 6:16-18 (NIV)

Whomever we serve we are slaves to. That is the reality. Even Jesus was a servant (slave) to his father. He also had the right to choose not to follow the right master but to serve evil. Praise Him for resisting. I quoted Donald Miller last week as saying “the toughest lie I have ever had to contend with is that life is a story about me”. It is this lie that makes it so hard for us to submit. We think we are the star. How could the star be a slave? We fool ourselves into thinking we are not slaves and that we are our own masters but we just end up being slaves to sin as Romans tells us. Knowing we are slaves is the first step to freedom (I will also deal with how slaves can be free later). We will all serve a master we only get to choose whom.

We will serve God by serving each other. At CH our tagline is “Serving the person with exceptional needs.” We must constantly remind ourselves of this. CH does not exist to supply us with employment. We are called to provide service. We often lose sight of this. District and Corporate office staff may feel as if the support workers and program managers are there to support them but would any office exist without program staff to support? And would there be any Support staff without individuals to serve? We think it is about us but we are all here to serve. Both within this organization and on this Earth.

Since we are created to be servants we are never more fulfilled than when we are serving the right master.

Mark Wallace