We continue this week with what it means to be a bondservant of the Lord. One thing it means is that we live to serve Him, not just ourselves. It also means attaining a level of trust with the Lord where He can count on us to do with excellence any job He gives us, and we can trust the Lord fully as our Provider.
This progression in our relationship to the Lord is a call to fulfill Luke 14:33: "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” To give up all of our possessions is a requirement to be a disciple, but it becomes a reality and is worked into our lives as we become His bondservants. This is when everything that we are—and that we own—becomes His in a practical way.
In practical application, we consider all that we have in our possession His property, not ours, and we are but stewards of it. For this reason, we should not spend His money except with His direction or approval. Tendencies such as going shopping just because we feel like it are not an option.
As we practice this, it breaks the habit of self-centeredness that we are born with, which can consume us our whole lives if not resisted. As we mature, He may trust us with more to steward and give us more freedom to make decisions in its management.
It is His way that liberty increases as we increase in maturity. So, to be Christ’s bondservant is to ultimately become one of the freest people on earth. He is God, and He knows what we need better than we do and can provide it better than we can. He is Love and is the most benevolent Master we could ever have, always keeping our best interests in mind along with His purposes. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and as His bondservants, we will have the most fulfilling lives we could possibly have.
This freedom and fulfillment increase as we learn to not live for ourselves but for Him. As we covered last week, the only place in Scripture that the Lord is called “our Provider” is on Mount Moriah, where Abraham proved willing to sacrifice that which was most precious to him, his son Isaac (see Genesis 22). It is in the place where we give our all to Him that He can give His all to us.
There are two more significant events that happened on Mount Moriah that are revelations of our progression and maturity in Him. The next is when King David numbered the people, and judgment came upon all Israel because of it (see 1 Chronicles 21). First, let us consider why this was such a transgression and, second, why the Lord struck all of Israel and not just David.
David was intent on numbering Israel because he was beginning to put an unhealthy trust in the people. This is a very dangerous thing for any leader to do, especially those in the Lord’s service as a bondservant. As Paul wrote in Galatians 1:10, “If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” The tendency to esteem men’s interests above the Lord’s resulted in the Lord calling Peter “Satan” (see Matthew 16:23). If not checked, this can lead to a devastating corruption of our service to the Lord, and we will be led more by the people than Him. This can begin to twist everything a leader does, just as it did King Saul.
When King David began putting too much trust in the people, the Lord sent the angel of death to strike the people. When David saw that Jerusalem was about to be struck, he sought a place to make a sacrifice to the Lord. When he saw the threshing floor and cattle of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered to buy them to sacrifice to the Lord to stop the plague. Ornan offered to give them to David, but David refused, saying, “I will certainly buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the Lord, nor offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing” (see 1 Chronicles 21:24).
So, again, Mount Moriah was the place where God was offered the “full price.” This was crucial for the third major event that happened on Mount Moriah—the building of the temple of the Lord. God’s dwelling place will be built where those who are called to be His dwelling place pay the “full price.”
A major part of the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was that they wanted to be counted among those who were giving everything to the Lord, but were “holding back part of the price” (see Acts 4). This was lying to the Holy Spirit, not just the apostles, and could not be tolerated, so the Lord struck them dead. The call to be a bondservant is voluntary, but when we make it, we must be true to it. To be true is fundamental to those who would be the temple of the Truth Himself.
© 2025 Rick Joyner. All Rights Reserved.
