Servants Sent To Serve

Today, another Lord’s Day Sunday, we begin the week, not just giving praise and thanks to our heavenly Father in general notes and tones. Our gratitude and ever glorious praise is to His unmerited and unfailing faithfulness to feed us daily with His word. Our Father feeds us in many ways and through many of His servants. We can never stop thanking Him for His abiding grace.

Even as we receive the title of today’s offering, we are drawn first and foremost to ourselves as servants of our Lord Jesus and how faithful and obedient we are in His service.

As we go through this week, we shall be brought to carefully study the service of a servant of Jesus who was sent to serve. I can hear some of you thinking about these words, servant sent to serve, but as we go through the week, it will all be made clear.   

We know that the Lord has disciples who have been chosen and commissioned to go into all the world, preaching the Good News. But there are other believers of Jesus, whom He sends on special missions as He chooses. Many of these people may never be as famous as others, nonetheless, they are people who have been used by Jesus and from them we are taught many things about our Lord and Master.

One such disciple is a man called Ananias who lives in Damascus. He is the disciple who has been chosen to be our focus for the week. It is through him that we will: -

• Come to understand more about the Lord as our Master, and ourselves as called servants, called to do work, about which we are not too enamored. 

• Consider more of the ways in which our Lord uses us in ways which show His authority and power.

• Comprehend more of the faithfulness of God to His Word, Way and Works and be made free and confident in whatever He calls us to do.

The Lord goes to His disciple Ananias and calls him by name. Ananias responds by acknowledging that it is the Lord who has called his name. The Lord then gives Ananias a mission, a work to do for Him. He sends him to a man called Saul of Tarsus who has come from Jerusalem to Damascus, and he is praying. Then He tells this to Ananias. And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight. Acts 9: 12.

Pause for a moment and note the following.

The Lord comes to His servant in a vision and calls his name. Ananias has absolutely no problem in knowing who is speaking, for he knows the voice of his Lord.

The Lord sends His servant to a specific street and house. Ananias definitely has no problem in finding the place for he knows the location well. He lives there.

The Lord tells His servant that he is being given the work of restoring the sight of a man. Ananias is not at all fazed or bothered about doing this miracle. That he has to place his hand on a person who is not seeing and make them see again is no issue for Ananias. He knows what his Lord is capable of doing in him.

The Lord names the person to whom His servant must go. Ananias has strong objections to this. He knows the man of whom his Lord is speaking, as an enemy of Jesus and His disciples.

This is what has me riveted about Ananias. He hears all that his Lord is saying and there is only one thing that scares him. There is just one thing that makes this servant of God unsure and most hesitant about doing what he has been commanded to do. What makes Ananias speak frankly about his reservations with the mission, is the person to whom he must go.

Think about it.  Tomorrow, we will carry on in this same vein.