{"id":188,"date":"2022-04-28T07:36:15","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T07:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/?p=188"},"modified":"2025-04-17T04:06:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T04:06:42","slug":"growing-as-christs-servant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/2022\/04\/28\/growing-as-christs-servant\/","title":{"rendered":"“Growing As Christ\u2019s Servant\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Growing As Christ\u2019s Servant\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rt. Rev Dr. D Steven Abbarow<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In Matthew 20:26-28, Jesus\u2019 response to his disciples\u2019 leadership aspirations was in juxtaposition to the secular model \u2014 to move towards servanthood, and away from \u201cbossing\u201d people around. Jesus modelled and embodied this in the upper room in John 13:14 when he washed his disciples\u2019 feet, and disclosed that this is what was expected. Greatness and being a disciple of Christ come from growing as Christ\u2019s servant.<\/p>\n

The logical and obvious response to God\u2019s love and grace to us in Christ Jesus is to offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). The struggle to backslide into a secular leadership model, thus losing our identity as servants of Jesus in ministry, is very real. As seminarians and people of God, we want to be equipped to be better servants of Christ and, therefore, go through training, exposure and study. The degrees, titles and experiences pile up along the way. A sense of entitlement soon creeps in, as if these achievements and experiences define us, and we are owed some recognition and benefits. If we are not careful, instead of serving Jesus and his church, we will be expecting Jesus and his church to serve us. Paul exemplifies this struggle and points to the way to avoid this trap, declaring: \u201cThanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!\u201d (Romans 7:25). God Himself will lead us to grow as servants of Christ (Philippians 2:13) through His Word and Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16-17).<\/p>\n

Being Christ\u2019s servant is also my identity and my calling \u2014 to become more like Jesus. It is a process from the time I was born again and baptised, and continues till I meet the Lord (1 Corinthians 13:12). At the baptism service in the Anglican Church, we are asked three questions pertaining to our posture towards Jesus Christ: (a) Do you turn to Christ? (b) Do you repent of your sins? (c) Do you hate evil? I find these vows very useful as a spiritual audit to see if I am in line with God\u2019s will for me to be a servant of Christ Jesus. Another way of putting this is, \u201cIs it well with my soul?\u201d During this season of Lent, may I encourage all of us to ask ourselves these questions, and trust God to mould us through His Word and Spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Growing As Christ\u2019s Servant\u201d The Rt. Rev Dr. D Steven Abbarow In Matthew 20:26-28, Jesus\u2019 response to his disciples\u2019 leadership aspirations was in juxtaposition to the secular model \u2014 to move towards servanthood, and away from \u201cbossing\u201d people around. Jesus modelled and embodied this in the upper room in John 13:14 when he washed his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-45th-anniversary-celebrating-gods-greatness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stm.edu.my\/beritastm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}