Free to serve like Jesus! Yes, I have rights and liberties, Yes I am free. In fact, it is for freedom that I have been set free - but I am to careful to not use my freedom to indulge my own flesh and its desires - to do just anything I want. (Gal 5-6)
Instead, in view of God’s mercy, and all that He has done, and the freedom that comes with being His child (Rom 2;5;8;12;17; Phil 2), I am now utterly free from any and everything that we can restrain me from loving and serving you - for just as Jesus (who is my righteousness) knew from Whom He’d come and to Whom He was returning, I can be humbly confident in my own relationship to and with God to do the same as Jesus did and take on the nature of a servant, the servant’s towels, and humbly serve the “one another” in love. (John 13; Gal 5:13-14)
Instead, I now have the right, the liberty, the freedom to rightly… love and serve (Isa 60:21; Jer 23:6; Hab 3:19; Rom 3:24; 7:24-25; 8:1; 1Cor 1:30; 2Cor 5:21), having (had) taken off our old way, attitude - that of the world - and (had) put on what Jesus has provided for us - the righteousness and goodness of Jesus reflected in the attitude and posture of Jesus, I cooperate with and participate in this truth, and take off the old way and put on the new (Ez 36:26; Isa 65:17; John 1:14; 3:3; Rom 6:4; 2Cor 5:16-21; Phil 2:1-11; Col 3:1-17; 2Pet 1:1-4)
The privilege and responsibility of being a dearly loved child (Rom 8; Eph 5)
To perform the duties, the good works, prepared in advance for me to do (Isa 43:1-13; 58:6-14; Eph 2:1-10)
Taking on Jesus’ attitude, posture, rights, and liberties, and how is this so. Just as Jesus did not come to be served but to serve, so we, having the same attitude as Jesus, who Himself a servant, now empowered, get to do the same. Seeing others as better than ourselves, we humbly serve. 1Pet 5:1-7 - humble ourselves talk to God and one another.
Matthew 20 Looking at leadership, authority, and success from a worldly point of you, is the desire to have power, prestige, position, worldly prosperity. The economy of the kingdom, on the contrary, is an upside-down economy - where the first is last and the last is first. And the heart of the one who has been saved has in it the ability to see and gladly learn and practice this truth. And for the one who would lead anyone or anything - it is to actually be the chief servant, and the one who seems greatest be the one who takes the lowest.
Luke 14:1-14 So, what is it, to intentionally, exercise the attitude and posture of Jesus? What does it look like to adopt and express His attitude of humility? Is it not, the same as the parable of the banquet, where are the invited jockey for a position, but we, also having been invited, look to take the lowest seat and in doing so, we are not seeking around glory, recognition, neither do we desire to have the eyes of the crowd upon us, we come in with lowly spirit without any expectation except to be glad that we were invited.
