Post by Don Gieseke on Dec 3, 2020 7:44:37 GMT -6
The Price of Service
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
Mark 10:45
In the ancient world, a ransom was money paid to purchase, then set free, a slave. “Ransom” appears twice in the New Testament when Jesus gave His reason for coming to earth: He came “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). That is, He purchased with His own life those who were slaves to sin and set them free to live a new life.
What’s interesting about the ransom Jesus paid is what that payment is connected to: service. Jesus said He came to serve by giving His life a ransom for many. Jesus’ own life and actions illustrate that there is a price to service. In Jesus’ case, the price was extremely high. We may never be called on to serve others by dying for them physically, but we are called on daily to serve others by dying to our selfish desires. When Paul wrote about Christ as a servant, he wrote, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”—that is, the mind of a servant (Philippians 2:5).
Be prepared today to pay whatever price Christ-like service requires.
[Be] willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God.
Oswald Chambers
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
Mark 10:45
In the ancient world, a ransom was money paid to purchase, then set free, a slave. “Ransom” appears twice in the New Testament when Jesus gave His reason for coming to earth: He came “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). That is, He purchased with His own life those who were slaves to sin and set them free to live a new life.
What’s interesting about the ransom Jesus paid is what that payment is connected to: service. Jesus said He came to serve by giving His life a ransom for many. Jesus’ own life and actions illustrate that there is a price to service. In Jesus’ case, the price was extremely high. We may never be called on to serve others by dying for them physically, but we are called on daily to serve others by dying to our selfish desires. When Paul wrote about Christ as a servant, he wrote, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”—that is, the mind of a servant (Philippians 2:5).
Be prepared today to pay whatever price Christ-like service requires.
[Be] willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God.
Oswald Chambers