Keep It Simple Servant

Keep It Simple Servant – Boy, do I over complicate things. Faith and obedience, it’s really that simple, servant!

Obedience as a servant takes action – Moses, strike the Nile with your rod. Raise your rod Moses. Strike the rock with your rod Moses. March around Jericho 7 times and shout. Lepers, go show the priest you are healed. Pick up your mat and walk. Keep it simple servant – Have faith and choose God (servant), hear His word, then take an action in obedience. Simple enough, right? It only gets complicated after my ideas start to get involved. I end up trying to figure things out myself (Proverbs 3:5-8). When I do this, I have walked right into the war zone, Spirit vs Flesh. Keep it Simple Servant –

Seriously, how hard was the action for Moses to literally lift his rod and strike the rock after he had faith and chose to be a servant of God? Seems simple enough – God spoke, Moses obeyed, smacked the rock, water started to flow – blessing. How hard was it for the lepers to literally start walking to show the priests? Simple enough. Called out to Jesus (faithful servants), heard the Lord speak, obeyed – one foot in front of the other, walk. – They were blessed – healed. Keep it simple servant! Have Faith, hear the Lord, obey and do, and be blessed.. That simple!!

James 1:22-25 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Luke 17:13-14 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.

As they went.. It sure does appear to me that when Jesus said to Go shew yourselves, that the lepers were not healed yet in the physical realm because it says, as they went, they were cleansed. It could have been immediately upon turning to go or while they were on the way to show the priest. But it was most definitely after they acted on their faith as servants. They had the faith – “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” – This shows the servant/Master relationship. Then Jesus spoke, the servants obeyed (acted on His word), and were healed. Keep it Simple Servant.

This was the word that kick started this topic for me. Naaman had leprosy and went to Elisha to be healed. Naaman obviously didn’t ‘keep it simple servant’, but, he went as a servant with faith –

2 Kings 5:9-14 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. (Faithful servant)

And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. (Hearing the voice of the Lord – simple)

But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. (Not doing. Why? The bold words tell us why. His ideas got involved. It is no longer simple, man’s philosophies are involved.)

And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? (In other words, if Elisha had said to go build an altar and sacrifice 100 bulls, would he not have done it? Keep it simple servant! Just obey.)

Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. (After receiving further reasoning pertaining to the instructions of the Lord, he was an obedient servant. Praise God!)

There are so many examples in the Bible on how simple the Lord keeps it for us servants, but we end up complicating it because our own ideas end up working itself in. It becomes works and attempts on our own part and in the end, our righteousness is but filthy rags.

Keep It Simple Servant

joseph

Please follow and like us: