Day 34 Purpose Driven Life.

DAY 34 Thinking about My Purpose 

POINT TO PONDER: To be a servant I must think like a servant.

VERSE TO REMEMBER: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” PHILIPPIANS 2:5 (NIV) 

QUESTION TO CONSIDER: Am I usually more concerned about being served or finding ways to serve others?

HIGHLIGHTS FROM BOOK : 

* SERVICE STARTS IN YOUR MIND.

*To be a servant requires a mental shift, a change in your attitudes. God is always more interested in why we do something than in what we do. Attitudes count more than achievements.

*Real servants serve God with a mind-set of five attitudes.

1. Servants think more about others than about themselves.

* “Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.”2 This is what it means to “lose your life” — forgetting yourself in service to others. When we stop focusing on our own needs, we become aware of the needs around us.

*Jesus “emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant.” When was the last time you emptied yourself 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.

*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.

*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.

2. Servants think like stewards, not owners.

*Servants remember that God owns it all.

*Money has the greatest potential to replace God in your life. More people are sidetracked from serving by materialism than by anything else.

*When Jesus is your Master, money serves you, but if money is your master, you become its slave.

3. Servants think about their work, not what others are doing.

*They don’t compare, criticize, or compete with other servants or ministries. They’re too busy doing the work God has given them.

*We are all on the same team; our goal is to make God look good, not ourselves; we have been given different assignments; and we are all uniquely shaped. Paul said, “We will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”

*There’s no place for petty jealousy between servants. When you’re busy serving, you don’t have time to be critical. Any time spent criticizing others is time that could be spent ministering.

*When Martha complained to Jesus that Mary was not helping with the work, she lost her servant’s heart. Real servants don’t complain of unfairness, don’t have pity-parties, and don’t resent those not serving. They just trust God and keep serving.

*It is not our job to evaluate the Master’s other servants. The Bible says, “Who are you to criticize someone else’s servant? The Lord will determine whether his servant has been successful.”

*It is also not our job to defend ourselves against criticism. Let your Master handle it."

4. Servants base their identity in Christ.

*Because they remember they are loved and accepted by grace, servants don’t have to prove their worth.

*They willingly accept jobs that insecure people would consider “beneath” them.

*If you’re going to be a servant, you must settle your identity in Christ. Only secure people can serve. Insecure people are always worrying about how they appear to others.

*The more insecure you are, the more you will want people to serve you, and the more you will need their approval.

*If anyone had the chance of a lifetime to flaunt his connections and “name-drop,” it was James, the half-brother of Jesus. He had the credentials of growing up with Jesus as his brother. Yet, in introducing his letter, he simply referred to himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

5. Servants think of ministry as an opportunity, not an obligation.

*They “serve the LORD with gladness.”

*Why do they serve with gladness? Because they love the Lord, they’re grateful for his grace, they know serving is the highest use of life, and they know God has promised a reward. Jesus promised, “The Father will honor and reward anyone who serves me.”

*It doesn’t matter what your age is, God will use you if you will begin to act and think like a servant.

*Albert Schweitzer said, “The only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve.”