Unprofitable Servants!

Unprofitable Servants!

“So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” Luke 17:10.

If this is the case, one might ask, “How can I possibly become a profitable servant?” You become a profitable servant by doing more than it is your duty to do.

People who only do what they are supposed to do are hard to deal with. They can be compared to those who have the law written on tablets of stone. They have to be shown, told, and pushed to do everything. They have become sufficiently influenced to be servants, and things go well whenever they have someone to watch over them. But if there is no one to watch over them, it goes poorly with them just as it did with King Joash. When he no longer had Jehoiada to watch over him, he began to serve idols. 2 Chron. 24:17-18.

This is how it goes with many people who come to a meeting where God’s light and will are proclaimed; they feel it as a burden that is imposed on them. They realize that it is necessary to do God’s will, and they do it because they feel duty-bound to do it. Thus they come to a nice life and appear to be pious, but they have no joy in the midst of all their worship service.

The new covenant is that God writes His laws on our hearts and in our minds. Then it will not have the effect as if the laws were written on tablets of stone—an external pressure—but rather it will be an inward desire to do God’s will. Then I have received a mind to do it. Neh. 4:6. It is easy to deal with such people. You don’t have to tell them everything, for they have received a different spirit within them that tells them what to do. When such people come to the meeting, they don’t just come as those who feels duty-bound to do God’s will, but they also come as those who have done it. Whereas others sit there and feel that one thing after another is imposed on them, the profitable servants sit there and rejoice because they have already done it, and even more can be added to it.

This is what we read in James when he writes that he who has looked into the perfect law of liberty is blessed in what he does. The perfect law of liberty is the law that God writes on our hearts and in our minds after we are finished with the law that is written on tablets of stone. This means that as long as there is something in my life that is not cleared up, or if I commit works of the flesh, I am judged by the law that is written on tablets of stone. I know that I am duty-bound to do something, but it is not being done. I think that it is heavy and difficult, yet I will have neither joy nor peace until it is done. But when I have done it, I feel lighter, yet I am still just an unprofitable servant. I have only done what I was required to do. However, now that I am finished with the law that is written on tablets of stone, I can look into the perfect law of liberty. Even though I know nothing against myself, yet I am not thereby justified. 1 Cor. 4:4. I could take it easy, but that is not the intention. Now God wants to write His laws on my heart and in my mind, which is His hidden wisdom. Now I enter into areas where no man can judge me; even I myself don’t know what I should judge, but God alone can give me light. Now we come to the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Christ. This agrees with what Paul writes: “We speak wisdom [of God] among those who are mature.” 2 Cor. 2:6-8. And then we will experience what John writes: “And His commandments are not burdensome.” 1 John 5:3. I have become blessed in all that I do. Only then am I a profitable servant—someone who doesn’t need to be watched over, but rather someone who can be relied on; someone who doesn’t have to be asked to do all kinds of things, but who instead realizes on his own what he has to do and does it even before you have had time to ask him to do it.