If a fellow Hebrew… sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free… But if your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Deuteronomy 15:12, 16-17 (NIV)
This servant found such joy in serving and felt so bonded to the family that he served, that at the end of his six years of service he said, “I don’t want to leave.”
If a servant makes this lifelong commitment, you do a bit of ear piercing with them. A servant with a pierced ear was one who served, not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
There is all the difference in the world between these two: The servant who serves because he has to asks: “How soon can I get out of here?” But the one who serves because he wants to asks: “What more can I do?”
It is easy to get involved in ministry for a while, and then to think, I’ve done my part. I’ve put in my time and now it’s someone else’s turn. But Jesus says, “If you want to make a significant impact for my kingdom, you need to become like a servant.”
Jesus became a servant by choice. He did not stop serving after the Resurrection. The Bible tells us that he always lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25). The sign of his lifelong service was given as he was pierced, not in his ear, but in his hands and his feet and his side.
Do you have the heart of a servant that asks: “What more can I do?”