IBS Application for Luke 17:7-10

“Will any of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table?’ Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Christ puts forth a challenge to all the Church here that is still something that many struggle with to this day. Essentially, He says that a person whose job is service is to serve. It is expected of the servant that he serve, so he ought not to be thanked for only doing the bare minimum and only doing what he is asked to do.

Jesus says that this applies to His disciples as well; it is expected that they do as He commands them to, so they will not be thanked for only doing what was expected and asked of them. Likewise, there is not necessarily a reward for doing only what is asked of us.

This challenge, to do more than what is expected of us, is one leveled not only at Christ’s 12 Disciples, but at the Church today as well. That greater calling, to go deeper and farther and to make disciples of all nations and to go out of our safety and our comfort zone, is how we go beyond what is expected of us. It’s the harder thing to do, to give up what God has blessed us with to share that blessing with those who haven’t received it. It’s harder still to count the cost and lay down our lives in service, as He did for us.

Really, what God wants us to do to show that we want to go deeper is that last thing: To lay down our lives for Him in service to others. To give up our rights and our safety and comfort just as Jesus did, letting God do what He wants to in and through us, and go minister to the world. That’s really what the mission is. That’s how we store up treasures in heaven.


For my application, I will try to pick up the slack where I’m not expected to in order to better serve my fellow Ignite interns and the Potter’s Field staff, without stepping over authority to do it. I will also pray every morning for the next week that God would reveal ways in which I might step up and do more than what has been asked of me, and that He would give me the drive and desire to fill those needs as they arise in order to better glorify Him in the work.

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