S E R V A N T H O O D (Updated)

You are going to find this strange, but ... I don't really like "people." Individuals, as such, are okay, but not "people." I like my wife and my favorite grandson. My other close relatives I "love," especially in the sense that I don't want harm to come to them, and I hope for the best for them. My actual inclination when it comes to "people" is to avoid them. I much more prefer to get into my study and write a book or an article, play a video game, pray, study the Bible, surf the web, or any of many other self-satisfying activities. I hate that I have to waste time sleeping, and I don't want to be disturbed when I am doing one of the above activities in my study. I enjoy being alone, with the exception of wanting my wife and favorite grandson around, and even then, including both of them, I tend to want to be alone more than not. I have found that when I am alone, my thoughts are clearer, I feel calmer, I seem to rest better and more, and I get a greater sense of accomplishment.

On the other hand, God loves "people." The Father sent His Son, our Lord, to be born as a human, so that He would die (!?) for these "people." His intention was to save some of them so that He could take them to be in heaven, with Him, in due time. He created "people" to live on this mud-hole-of-a-planet so that He could interact with them and, in the end, have some of those "people" spend eternity with Him. Humans should be grateful and thankful that God is God, and that I am not. I would not have wasted any time on "people." "People" tend to be selfish, egoistic, manipulative, self-serving, and too often, this is on their "best" days. Did I mention that I don't like "people?" Nevertheless, God has chosen not to let all those bad qualities of "people" stop Him from accomplishing His plans in their favor. No matter how much "people" reject Him, turn their backs on Him, Ignore Him, and so forth, He continues to love them. I would have nuked the planet long ago and gotten it all over with. Still, God loves "people," and He wants them saved for His kingdom.

This is where I come in. You see, God is not going to come down here again, and do the work of reaching those "people" for His kingdom. He wants me to do that. He wants me to take time from my "important" activities, and serve "people!" I want to stay in my study and play my videos games, oops, I mean, read the Bible and pray. Cough, cough. Insert smiley face here. 

He wants me to counsel "people." He wants me to help "people." He wants me to serve "people." He wants me to love "people." He wants me to give to "people." He wants me to do the opposite of what I want to do with "people." I want to do nothing with "people," and He wants me to do something; to serve "people." The worst part is that He not only wants me to serve "people," but He wants me to want to serve "people," just because He wants that from me.

Phase 1 - My New Birth

Most people come to know Christ as their Savior. They either prayed the "Sinner's Prayer," or they consciously "accepted" His forgiveness of their sins. To most people, this means that they are now "saved," and that they are now "Christians." If you ask ten persons what their Christianity means to them, they will likely tell you that this means they should not go to church, read their Bible, and pray as often as possible. They believe they should try to get along with others the best possible and to be kind to animals. Most of these new Christians live their Christian life as though they are now members of a new club. A club which requires its members to follow certain rules. But not the type of rules that must be followed under penalty of consequence. Instead, rules that you follow if you think you should, and ignoring those you either do not understand or with which you agree. Those were the people I first met as a Christian, and yes, there were some persons who were acceptations. My first impressions with these new Christians was disappointing. I had a slightly difficult time differentiating between their behavior and the behavior of many non-Christians I knew. I was new to all of that, but I knew that there was something else that was still missing in my new life as a Christian. There was something else that God wanted from me that was not obvious at the time. Accepting Jesus as my Savior was only the first step of my new journey.

I first came to know God as my "Lord." To Me, that meant and still does, that He is the boss. Everything must be done the way He wants it done, and, just because He said so. My opinions and feelings were irrelevant. He was not asking me to like doing what He wanted to be done, He just wanted me to want to do it because He wanted me to want to. I understood that. I grew up in a home with a manipulative and controlling mother. If you did not do things the way she wanted you to do them, she would beat you and knock you into next week. If you did things the way she wanted, she allowed you not to be beaten, for that moment. She was the boss, and that was it. I understood that and that knowledge saved me from many beatings. I just did what she told me to do, and I was not beaten or abused in return.

I expected somewhat the same kind of relationship with God, except that He kept assuring me that He would not hurt me. I wanted to believe Him, I knew how I had been an abusive man for many years. Abusive to people around me, and mostly to my wife. My treatment of my wife was how I was also abusive with my children. If you abuse your children's mother, you are also abusing your children emotionally. God's assurances introduced hope in me, but my lack of ability to trust others caused me to doubt His comforting words. I did want for His assurances to be true, I so needed for His assurances to be true.

He told me that He loved me, but I did not know what "love" was, so that didn't mean much to me. I had seen my mother and father do things to us that should not happen if they truly loved us. To me, love meant that you abandoned those who are your closest relatives if suddenly you just don't want them around. Love meant that you looked out for yourself, even at your children's expense. Love meant beating your kids just because they didn't understand something, or because they did not move quickly enough to get you your beer. Love meant looking out for yourself.

He tried consoling me by telling me that He was my Father, but that did not mean much to me as well. My father left us when I was three years old. To me, fathers were cowards that left their children because they were so selfish that they looked out for their own happiness, and they did not care about their children's feelings. So, when God told me He was my Father, that produced anxiety in me rather than any kind of comfort or peace.

But, when He showed me that He was my Lord (the boss, the one in charge, the one in control, the one who gave the orders), I immediately understood. Control and manipulation had been parts of my life for as long as I could remember. The biggest person in the room was usually the one in control, the boss. If you were willing to hurt others, and if they did not want to be hurt, then they became afraid of you. This alone made you the boss, the "Lord." And, besides all other ideas I may have had about God, one that was clearest to me was that He was THE Lord! If God were to say that we must do something, then that is what you did. If He said that He liked, or did not like, something, the best thing you should do is change the way you feel so that it lines up with His feelings. I needed God to change me. I needed God to help me save my marriage. I needed things in my life that would take only God to get them done. I needed Him, but I believed that He did not need me. So I saw the relationship as something that was completely to my benefit. I do what He tells me to do, and He will reward me for doing it. What could be better than that?

I learned that God is God, and I am not God. He tells me what He wants to be done, and I have only two options: 1) to obey, and get blessed for my obedience, or 2) Disobey. If I disobey, He will still get done what He wants to be done, but I will lose out on the blessing. So, I obey. That's it. That's my understanding of my relationship with God. It is still that way to this day, but, I have also learned other things which make the relationship much better.

Phase 2 - Learning the Lessons

I was 32 years old when I gave my life to the "Lord." And, I need you to know that I thought, at the time, that I was giving my life to "God," but I did not have the concept of giving my life to Jesus Christ. I understood Jesus to be a human being into whom God put a piece of Himself, and who lived a sinless life while obeying God faithfully. The way I understood it, "sinless" meant that Jesus always obeyed, never disobeyed and that He always did what God wanted Him to do solely because God wanted Him to do so. I knew there was some sort of connection between them, but I did not see Jesus as God himself. In my version of the "sinner's prayer," I told God that if He said that Jesus died on the cross for my sins that I would accept that." Mostly I was acquiescing to the idea. This was something I quickly learned that Christians were supposed to believe, but I did not understand how the knowledge was supposed to impact my life and as well as how I saw God. Learning about Jesus became a journey in and of itself. I wanted to learn more about this human man who could obey God and never disobey, and wondered if I could live as He did.

Immediately, God started working on me. He used my pastors to shape me, to prepare me, to train me, and, most importantly, to teach me submission. I began with my first pastor, Leo Villa, and then to my second, Pastor Pilcher, and then to my third, pastor Roy Gomez, and then to my fourth, pastor Pete Martinez, and then to my final pastor, Otoniel Solares. Pastor Villa moved from Dallas to San Antonio so I ended up in pastor Pilcher's church, Bethel Temple. They moved the church to the suburbs, and so I started going to pastor Gomez' church, Victory Outreach. Eventually, he also moved to San Antonio, and he was replaced by Pastor Martinez, who later died of cancer. I really wondered what God was doing, why all of this had happened with my pastors. I met pastor Solares soon afterward and remained under his authority until he also died. I could clearly see the hand of God working in my life. I kept on going from pastor to pastor because I knew I needed someone to oversee my growth as a Christian and I believed I needed a pastor to guide me. Each one of these men, in their own manner, made the effort to help me better understand my relationship with God, but they were not all successful. Pastors Leo Villa and Otoniel Solares did succeed though. The difference in them was that they most exemplified the exhortation of Frist Corinthians 11:1, "Imitate me, as I imitate Christ." The other three pastors did their jobs. They officiated over their congregations, preached, taught and gave instruction. But Pastor Villa and Pastor Solares worked with me on a different level. They allowed themselves to become my examples by specifically choosing to be examples. They inspired me. They made me want to be like them. But, I had much to learn yet.

I learned quickly that the only "right" I would ever have as a Christian was "to be called a son of God," other than that, I have no rights. I don't have the right to say no to God when He tells me to do something. I noticed that other Christians seemed to be different. They would obey God when it suited them, and they would not when they did not want to obey. They seemed to get away with this behavior, but when I tried it, God would "spank" me and remind me who was THE Lord. I remember sometimes feeling as though God was not being fair. Why would He discipline me when I failed to obey Him and then seem to let others get away with it? I wanted to argue and complain, but I would remember how my mother dealt with that and decided that I did not want to get a God angry at me as well. My mother could be quite abusive, but a God could deal terrible things to me and I would not be able to even run away from Him. No, I just obeyed.

Around this time, I "met" Paul. St. Paul. Paul who used to be Saul. The man who wrote more "books" in the Bible than anyone else. Paul, the ex-Sanhedrin Council member who was knocked off of his "high horse." Paul who affected our doctrine as Christians in a manner more powerfully than anyone else. Paul, whose love and devotion to the rising Christ was demonstrated by his life and choices. Paul who "did not do" what he was supposed to do, but instead did what he was "not supposed to do." Paul, with whom I related to completely. I love Jesus, but it is Paul I relate to because of all his faults, and still giving himself over to the Lord without hesitation. Through Paul's teaching, I got a better perspective on my walk with God. I got a glimpse of what I began to understand was God's intention for me. Sure, He wanted me to go to church. Sure, He wanted me to read my Bible. Sure, He wanted me to pray. He wanted the same things from me that He wanted from all other Christians, but there was something else He was leading me to that I was not yet grasping. The answer was in the teachings of the Apostle Paul, but my goal was to find it and learn it. The words that rang in my head were, "Imitate me." The question I had to answer, to find my answer, was, "What does it mean to 'imitate,' and who was supposed to imitate whom?"

Phase 3 - Growing Up

Slowly but surely, I began to catch on. He was training me. He was preparing me for something that I did not, at that time, know He was going to demand of me. He needed me to not only comply with His demands and instructions but to want to do what He wanted me to do, just because He wanted me to do them. To become His servant willingly. To become His "bond-servant."

In Jesus' day, when someone owed money to someone else and they could not pay it off at the due time, that person became the slave of the one to whom the money was owed. In some cases, the amount of money owed was so large that the slave remained in service for many years. In some of those cases, at the end of the time served, the person who was the slave realized that their life turned out to be better as a slave that it had been when they were free. In those cases, the "slaves" chose to remain as slaves for the rest of their lives. They became known as "bond-slaves," because they willingly chose to be bound to their masters. God wanted me to willingly choose to be His bond-servant. I thought about my life before I came to know Him as my Lord. I could not think of even one reason why I would want to go back to that kind of life. So, I gave myself to Him, to be His property. He owns me, and I am so happy He does. But, that brings us back to the point I made at the beginning, God loves "people," and He wants me to "love" "people" too. Thank God He does not require me to like them, I just have to "love" them.

The great thing about all of this is that I am not confused as to what He means by "love." Thank God I don't have to have any particular feelings for any of these "people," as I "love" them. I just need to do what God wants me to do with them. By doing that, I am "loving" them, and even better, He is loving them through me. Now He, God, does have feelings for those "people." Me, I have the ability to "love" someone without ever liking them. Why? Because God has taught me that to "love" someone all I need to do is do what He wants me to do for them. I can handle that. When I serve someone in the manner that God wants from me, I also do it because I want to do that for Him. So the "people" I serve feel as though it is I who is "loving" them when in actuality it is God who is loving them through me. I don't have to work so hard at "loving" "people," because I don't have to like them to accomplish that. All of this helps me to be a better servant to God. A "good and faithful servant." This is because it does not depend on my feelings, opinions, or wants. I am His property, and that means He can do with me and mine as He deems fit. I only pray and hope that He does not allow me to suffer too much. My life is His. My wife is His. My children are His. Everything I even consider mine is His. I believe that being His bond-servant is way better than me being free to live this life in whatever manner I believe is right and good.

Phase 4 - Imitate Me

The main thing which has changed since those early years in my walk with God is that I have learned to "want to do" the things that God wants me to do; both because I want Him to like me, as well as love me. I know God loves me. But I also know that love has conditions. No, I don't mean that I have to do something for God to love me, but that His love has demands on it which I in return need to comply with. It's like this, when God loves you that means He wants you to give that love away. Why? To God love is not just some feeling He has about or toward you, it is an action He has taken on your behalf. When God loves He gives away some of Himself. When God gives us something, He wants us to also give something away. You know, "To give is better than to receive." So, God, by loving me, He is telling me that I must give that love away. This is a condition. God's love is not "unconditional," it most certainly has a condition, we are to give it away. And, the more we give away, the more we get. He wants us to do as He does, to "imitate Him." But, how does someone learn to "imitate Christ?"

In my case, my growth in Christ forced me to learn new concepts. The way I was going to learn these new concepts was by learning more about Him. I wondered why Jesus was able to submit so easily to the Father. What was it about Him that lead Him to make those choices? One of His qualities that I caught on to was His desire to please the Father. This was important I deduced, I had to experiment and learn more about this idea. What did I learn? I know that if God tells me to do something, that means that He will be pleased with me when I obey Him, and I want to please Him. Why do I want to please him? Because I am selfish. I want Him to bless me, to prosper me, to make my life less troublesome, and to meet the desires of my heart. And, I know that He will not do that unless I first "seek His kingdom and righteousness." That is not a problem for me. I learned early on that everything has a price or condition. Nobody does anything for nothing, and that includes God. He is not doing this whole "creation" thing for nothing. In due time, He wants to end up in eternity with all those "people" who chose to believe in the name of Jesus Christ for their salvation. How does He want to use me in all of His plans, you might ask? By serving "people." How does He want me to "serve" people? By becoming someone like Paul, like our Lord, Jesus, and like my pastors Leo Villa and Otoniel Solares. The one thing I learned through Pastor Solares specifically, was that being a good example to those who surround us is more important than our own happiness. He was a man who loved others. He proved that in his marriage, with his children, in his role as a pastor, and, as far as I am concerned, as a mentor. He expected out of me exactly the same as he was doing. He never expected out of others anything different than what he himself would do in their circumstances.

When Pastor Otoniel Solares died, my heart broke. I had come to so depend on his leading and direction that, for a moment, I felt lost. I had found some most needed father figures in Pastor Villa and Pastor Solares. Pastor Villa lived in another city, and the pastor under whose authority I had lived the longest had died. But, it was this very circumstance which God used to move me into my next phase of growth in Him. At the time, I prayed and asked God what I should do. Who would be my next pastor? Under whose authority did He want me to place myself now. His answer surprised me. He said that my time of looking for father-figures was over. That it was now my time to be the father-figure to others. After this, the Lord started sending me "people" do disciple.

Phase 5 - Servanthood

I am much more mature than from those early days of my walk with the Lord. I know and understand His love. And, I am happy with the conditions that come with it. Thankfully, He still hasn't required me to like "people." But, I have come to understand the cost of servanthood. The loneliness. Many of the persons in the Scriptures who were used greatly of God dealt with this circumstance. Jesus seemed to always have those crazy disciples around with Him, but he was still different and apart from them. He was the Christ. He did not come to earth to be happy. He did not come to get married and have a family. He was never going to have a long and satisfying life on the earth. Those around Him, who spent most of their time with Him, but still did not really know Him while He was alive as a human. They knew there was something special about Him, they knew they were not like Him. Jesus was a bond-servant.

Paul was also "a man apart." Initially, all that Christians knew about him was that he was a bad man. They knew he wanted to kill Christians and to destroy the new growing religion of Christianity, which he saw as a cult that offended God. Even after Paul had his encounter with the Lord, and after being taught by the Holy Spirit for many years, Christians still did not trust him completely. There seemed to be an expectation that Paul would suddenly revert back to being the killer of Christians. As he began spreading his teachings throughout the known world, "people" recognized that there was something different about him. His teachings demonstrated thinking which was different from that which the disciples had been teaching. No, I do not mean there were contradictions, I mean that Paul's teachings introduced concepts and ideas which were further ahead of what others were preaching and teaching. This alone set him apart from others. You see, when Paul came to know Christ in his life, his life changed. He was no longer going to have a happy marriage, lots of kids, and find satisfaction with the things of this life. He would never belong to himself ever again. There was something special about him, he wanted to please God with his life. He knew and believed that if he ever got to the point where he could no longer please God in this life, he would rather die and go to be with his Lord. Paul was a bond-servant.

David was a "man after God's heart." But what did this mean? In Acts 13:22 we are taught that "After removing Saul, he (God) made David their king. He (God) testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'" Notice the words, "He will do everything I want him to do." From the time he was young, David watched over his father's sheep. He learned early on that he must be faithful and a good steward of those things with which his father entrusted him. Often, he had to deal with other animals, such as lions and bears, which wanted to snatch away sheep. He could have easily chosen to run away and save his own life. After all, wasn't David's own life as a human more important than some sheep? Not from David's point of view. He had been entrusted with their safety and he was not going to take that responsibility lightly. He would do the right thing in his father's eyes. As David grew into adulthood, as well as in his knowledge and love of the Lord, He made the same decision about his God. Even though he was not "perfect," as many "people" argue even today, and even though he did fail the Lord, as many of us do today, he wanted to please God. He was different from those around him. He was a bond-servant.

What about you? How are you different from those around you? What is it that you do as a Christian that they still do not do? Are you someone they should imitate, or are you still imitating others? Are you a teacher now, or are you still a student? Are you a father-figure now, or are you still looking for a father-figure? Do you do what pleases God, or do you just "want" to please God? Are you now satisfied in Christ, or are you still seeking the blessings of this life? Do you serve (minister to) others, or are you still being served (ministered to) by others? Do others see you as one of them, or do they see something in you that is different from themselves? Are you one of the "people," or are you apart from them? Are you someone who leads others to Christ, or are you someone who follows other "people's" religious beliefs? Finally, are you a bond-servant of God? Will you spend the rest of your life looking for ways to improve your circumstances, providing better things for your family, looking for someone to marry and with whom to start a family, and searching for ways to fulfill your "Christian" obligations? Or, will you spend the rest of your life waiting on God, listening to hear what He wants you to do, ministering to others in whatever way God wants from you, and finding satisfaction in the fact that you do what pleases God?