Jesus “emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant.”^3
When was the last time you emptiedyourself for someone else’s
benefit? You can’t be a servant if you’re full of yourself. It’s only
when we forget ourselves that we do the things that deserve to be
remembered.
Unfortunately, a lot of our service is often self-serving. We
serve to get others to like us, to be admired, or to achieve our
own goals. That is manipulation, not ministry. The whole time
we’re really thinking about ourselves and how noble and
wonderful we are. Some people try to use service as a bargaining
tool with God: “I’ll do this for you God, if you’ll do something
for me.” Real servants don’t try to
use God for their purposes. They
let God use them for his purposes.
The quality of self-forgetfulness,
like faithfulness, is extremely rare.
Out of all the people Paul knew,
Timothy was the only example he
could point to.^4 Thinking like a
servant is difficult because it challenges the basic problem of my
life: I am, by nature, selfish. I think most about me. That’s why
humility is a daily struggle, a lesson I must relearn over and over.
The opportunity to be a servant confronts me dozens of times a
day, in which I’m given the choice to decide between meeting my
needs or the needs of others. Self-denial is the core of servanthood.
We can measure our servant’s heart by how we respond when
others treat us like servants. How do you react when you’re taken
for granted, bossed around, or treated as an inferior? The Bible
says,“If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to
practice the servant life.”^5
Servants think like stewards, not owners. Servants
remember that God owns it all. In the Bible, a steward was a
servant entrusted to manage an estate. Joseph was this kind of
servant as a prisoner in Egypt. Potiphar entrusted Joseph with his
The Purpose-Driven Life 266Real servants don’t try to use
God for their purposes. They let
God use them for his purposes.