A Bondservant: What is it?

http://braulerson.blogspot.com/2009/04/slave-to-christ.html

A "doulos", or bondservant is a servant who serves without wages, or out of his or her own free will. A little history. Back in the common time of bondservants, individuals would approach a home and decide they want to serve that house and its family for the rest of their life without receiving wages, but just because. For whatever reason, a family debt owed, the spirit of volunteering, or some other reason unknown, a family, man, or woman even would just decide to become a slave to the household out of their own choice. So to make the agreement a little more permanent, the owner of the house would take the man, woman or family and hold their head up to the door of their house and pierce their ear with some sort of ornament piercing that represented that they belonged to that home. So, how does that relate to us at all?

James 1:1

"James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings."

Let's just look at this piece of scripture from James. It describes the ordinary man named James, the half-brother of Jesus, as a bond servant of Christ. This means that James was called out to be a servant of Christ. He decided with his own will to pierce his ear to the door of God. He decided to whole heartedly follow his half-brother Jesus, after the revelation that He was God. This was during the Roman oppression time period, that made all of the tribes scatter because of how strict the rule was. James still stood up and took the role he was divinely called to do. He was called to be that bond servant. He was called to pierce his ear to the door of heaven and live his life as a servant, in times of extreme pressure and hardships, of Christ and to follow Him on his own free will.

That is what we are called to do. We are called to be a bond servant like James was. We can't just "believe" in God. Those people that say:

"Oh yeah, I believe in God. Oh yeah, the Bible's great, its really cool. Yeah I believe in the cross, and I believe in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Yeah I believe it, I do, I really do believe..."

Well congratulations! You took the first step, now go scatter and live that belief out. Jesus calls us to live in a love relationship with Him. It is more then just believing it is living. And to live in God, to live in that life walking with Jesus is exactly what we are called to do whole heartedly, and on our own free will. God did not create us as a slave forced to follow Him. We have free will to choose to serve Him or not. But...if we take that initiative. If we choose the first step to believe in Him, it is then our duty as believers to become followers. We are called to be that bond servant. Here is my prayer and maybe yours too:

" Lord I want to serve your house. I want to be the light of the world that you called me to be. I am ready to have myself 'pierced' with your word on your lips and your fire in my heart. I want to serve your house like you have called me to, for the rest of my life here on earth and forever in my heavenly home as well."

Its a hard prayer but if we choose this road, it has to be our prayer. If it isn't, if we choose not to live what we believe, then why even believe in something you won't live by? Just don't go around proclaiming it if you don't live it. Don't waste your time. We have to be a bond servant for Christ and it may be and feel near impossible and you better believe it is hard to do, but it is a necessary goal in our Christian walk. So, join me in trying to make that a reality? I know I won't regret it when I get to that point. Hopefully you won't either.