The Servant Way: Through the Counsel of the Holy Spirit

By Timothy Self

The approach of this book is to speak directly to YOU regarding how to live the way of God's servant even through life's pains, struggles, and distractions. As you surrender to God, obey the counsel of the Holy Spirit, and follow Jesus Christ, you will come to understand your true identity, your purpose in life, what is most important in life, and what you are to do in life. You will also learn specific ways to overcome spiritual challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643007595

Book preview

Book Approach

The approach of this book is to speak directly to YOU regarding how to live the way of God’s servant even through life’s pains, struggles, and distractions. As you surrender to God, obey the counsel of the Holy Spirit, and follow Jesus Christ, you will come to understand your true identity, your purpose in life, what is most important in life, and what you are to do in life. You will also learn specific ways to overcome spiritual challenges.

Book Purpose

Consider this to be a guidebook toward living exactly the way the Lord God purposes you to live. That is, as a servant of God who relies on the counsel, direction, and enabling of the Holy Spirit to do God’s will. This book is intended to introduce you to matters related to your servant identity, servant life, and servant ministry. In addition, it may serve as a guide toward helping you to teach others how to draw near to God.

Book Structure

The introduction presents the importance of the Holy Spirit to the servant of God. The book is then separated into three parts.

Part 1: Servant Identity includes the first three chapters of the book. Chapter 1 highlights surrender, trust, and obedience as the foundation for living as a servant of God. Chapter 2 presents the nature of God and humankind, as well as the role and life approach of God’s servant. Chapter 3 shows the importance of having a daily core prayer. This chapter also provides a sample core prayer.

Part 2: Servant Living consists of the next three chapters of the book. Chapter 4 features the importance of being in holy fellowship with God. Chapter 5 shows the importance of having a loving friendship relationship with Jesus Christ. Chapter 6 provides matters of spiritual counsel and direction for servant living, servant ministry, and overcoming life pains and distractions.

Part 3: Servant Ministry contains the final two chapters of the book. Chapter 7 distinguishes between a disciple and a servant disciple. It also provides the scope of discipleship, resulting in an at-a-glance chart that highlights the pillars, processes, and practices of discipleship. Chapter 8 lists the teachings, commands, and ministry works of Christ that are portrayed within the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Also, this chapter provides lists of specific discipleship practices that parallel or imitate Christ’s teachings, commands, and ministry works.

The conclusion provides the essential requirements of absorbing the sufferings, pains, and burdens of others, and maintaining a heavenly focus.

Preface

: The Servant Solution

The Servant Solution

Problem: The Christian Frustration

As a Christian, you might find it frustrating that you are not able to constantly win spiritual battles; remain fervent in prayer; walk in daily fellowship with God; gain a deeper relationship with Christ; experience life revelations; continuously follow the teachings, commands, and ministry works of Christ; or have an effective Christian ministry. Or perhaps your frustration is that you just have not yet found something new, fresh, and miraculous that will truly inspire you to live with relentless holiness in the midst of an evil and corrupt world.

If not resolved, any of these situations may lead to a lack of resoluteness and enthusiasm in your Christian journey. Then you will be vulnerable to worldly influences or demonic attacks that seek to distract you from praising God and doing His will. Ultimately, you will experience personal emptiness, sluggishness, ineptness, or worst of all, arrogance.

Solution: The Servant Way

To overcome such frustrations and challenges, accept that you are a servant of God and live the servant way. Then you will be an effective and powerful force in the kingdom of God. The way of the servant is to rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit to counsel, direct, and enable you regarding all matters of Christian living, ministry, and service to God. In other words, rather than attempting to handle life problems, draw near to God, or perform ministry works on you own (without the guidance of the Holy Spirit), as a servant of God, you are to wait for the indwelling Holy Spirit to counsel, direct, and enable you to do God’s will at the appointed time for a specific purpose. That is the servant way!

The Holy Spirit is your Helper¹ (or Counselor) who will also teach, guide, comfort, and advocate for you in all matters. Know that when you hear the counsel of the Holy Spirit, you are hearing directly from God. The Bible says, He will guide you in all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.² So as a servant of God, the Christian life experiences that you are seeking will be provided to you through the counsel, direction, and enabling of the Holy Spirit, who speaks the will of God.

Bible Scripture References

John 14:26 (NASB)

John 16:13 (NASB)

Introduction

: Servant Features

Servant Features

Servant Identity

Everything created is subservient to its creator. God created you, so you are subservient to God. To be subservient to God is to obey Him. When you obey God, you serve Him. Therefore, by God’s design, you were created to be His servant. Rejecting your servant identity does not negate the fact that you are, indeed, God’s servant. Rejection only forces you to live with identity confusion or falseness. But accepting the truth of your servant identity enables you to have confidence in who are and purpose in what you do throughout life.

Servant Holiness

The Lord God only creates perfection and holiness. It was God’s intention for you to be holy, just as He is holy.¹ But because of original sin from the Garden of Eden, you were born into this world with inherent weakness, imperfection, and unholiness. The good news, however, is after you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit joined or merged with your own spirit, enabling you to be holy before God. In other words, it is the indwelling Holy Spirit of God who gives you servant holiness. Without relying on the counsel, direction, and enabling of the indwelling Holy Spirit, your attempts to serve God will be insufficient or fruitless.

Servant Access

As a servant of God, you have access to all the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This means you can do anything the Lord God purposes you to do, but through the empowering of the Holy Spirit who resides within you. The following explains this further:

Alone, you can do nothing that is holy, righteous, and supernatural as you have entered this world inheriting the stain of original sin, which leads only to physical death and spiritual separation from God. But once you acknowledged the truth that Jesus Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice for all your sins (past, present, and future) and accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior from all sins, the Holy Spirit of God joined with your own spirit, enabling you to do all things, natural and supernatural, at God’s discretion. As a result, through the humility that comes with a servant’s heart, you may utilize all the eternal power of God through His Holy Spirit to overcome personal miseries and worldly distractions; live in a perpetual state of holiness; praise and worship God with a sincere and loving heart; embrace your true identity as a servant of God; and to effectively and victoriously bring healing, comfort, and spiritual guidance to others. In essence, you will be able to do all things through Christ who strengthens you.² Know that it is under the prompting and power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and under the name and authority of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that you may live fully and completely as a servant of God.

Servant Benefits

It is the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit that brings wisdom to your mind, love to your heart, peace to your soul, truth to your spirit, blessings to your life, and power to your intersessions for others. Listening to and obeying the counsel of the Holy Spirit enables you to bear the fruits of holiness and to remain in God’s fellowship. Neglecting or denying the counsel of the Holy Spirit will always result in personal futility and aloneness. But you who will accept your position as God’s servant will not be alone. The Holy Spirit will be with you and will give you all the comfort, courage, strength, and power that is required to be an effective, victorious, and faithful servant of God, which is your natural state by God’s design.

There is no better way to live than the servant way, which allows you to live in constant fellowship with God; to have courage and confidence; to overcome extreme pain and excessive sorrows; to devotedly and enthusiastically honor, praise, and worship God; to effectively guide others toward servant living; to naturally and supernaturally draw others near to God; and to bless the Lord God, Most High, Host of all creation.

Bible Scripture References

Leviticus 20:26 and 1 Peter 1:16 (NASB)

Philippians 4:13 (NASB)

Part 1

Servant identity

Your True Identity

First and foremost, you are a servant of God, which is the highest position and highest calling in all creation. You have access to all the power of the universe by the Holy Spirit of God residing within you, and your life activity is under the name and authority of Jesus Christ. You are also an adopted child of God, coheirs with Christ to the very living thrown of God. You are also a king and priest and servant of God’s people.

Matters of Identity

Chapter 1: Servant Foundation (Surrender, Trust, Obedience)

Chapter 2: Servant Role and Life Approach (Core Nature and Proclamations)

Chapter 3: Servant Core Prayer (Thanks, Praise, Equipping, Requests, Blessings)

Chapter 1

Servant Foundation

Rather than experiencing the Christian frustrations as presented in the preface, you want to experience God’s power and presence in your life. You want to have victory over life’s pains, sufferings, excessive sorrows, bondages, and worldly distractions. You continue to search for a relationship with God that is closer, more intimate, loving, and powerful than you have ever known. You want to be rejuvenated in your spirit, excited in your faith, fervent in prayer, reverent in worship, and effective as a witness of God’s love, truth, and mercy. Ultimately, you want to live a purposeful, peaceful, and holy life, which is filled with abundant blessings and continuous fellowship with the Lord God, Most High.

What you desire is absolutely possible because this is also God’s desire for your life. All of this is achieved by living the way of the servant of God, which requires you to