Serving Without Needing to Know

John 15:15

“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have to call you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (NKJV)

Wow. I have thought of myself as a servant who needs to serve his Master, which I do, but I never thought of myself as a friend. What are the best qualities of a friend? What are the best qualities of a master? When I ponder on these questions it seems more and more apparent that Christ is a friend more than a master. A master rules over His servants, commands them and deserves their respect no matter what his plans are. A master sees a need and has a vision, which he commands his servants to complete it task by task without showing them his plans. A friend, on the other hand, comforts you, loves you, cares about you, fellowships with you and serves you. Christ didn’t come to earth “to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28) out of love as a friends have compassion for one another and help one another.

We need to remember that although Christ calls us friends we still need to serve Him. A true, covenantal, friendship involves serving one another out of love. We aren’t supposed to obey as mindless servants that are loyal to their master, but rather as a wife obeys her husband because she loves him.

We need to remember Christ’s reasoning behind calling us friends. He did not say that we are friends because we don’t need to serve. He did not say that we are His friends because we have earned it. Christ said we are His friends and not His servants because He has revealed to us what God has shown Him. In other words, we are solely not considered Christ’s servants because He has shown us His plan, shows us how others are working and shows us how we can help to complete His vision.

To not just serve God, but to begin to understand how to serve God out of love I am going to do the next kitchen cleanup with a loving heart that is there to serve a fellow friend.