September 13.
Serving From Love

Romans 1:1

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to he an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

Paul states his position as a servant. The Greek word for servant is doulos, which means slave. There are several kinds of slaves. One is just a natural slave, but then there is what you call a bond slave. A bond slave is different than a normal slave. A bond slave is a person that somehow fell in love with his master. The Jewish people had a custom that every seven years they would set slaves free. But if a slave had a good master and did not want to be set free, he would get an awl and put a hole in his ear. Then he put an earring in the ear indicating that he had been set free but chose to remain a slave. (Deuteronomy 15:17)

Paul was a preacher but his position toward the Lord was that of a servant slave. Jesus said, “I did not come to be served. I came to serve.” One of the highest callings you can ever have is that of being a servant. Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody; forty years discovering he was nobody; and forty years learning how God could take a nobody and make a somebody. When he died, God said, “Moses, my servant, is dead.”

Called. In the Greek the word call means that God actually designated Paul for a specific purpose. To a certain extent, all of us are called because Romans 8:29 says whom the Lord did foreknow prognosis – knew before hand what he’s going to do now, He did predestinate – progizo – marks off a boundary. For whom the Lord did foreknow them he also did justify to be conformed to the image or the likeness of his son. When He finds stuff in us that doesn’t favor his Son, He prunes us. In other words, He cuts jagged edges off of us to fix us. He’s working on us now to help us to shape ourselves to look like Jesus. Because God said, When He shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see Him for ourselves.