Unearth Your God-Given Servant Seed
What exactly is the servant seed, your servant seed that helps you discover your God-given life purpose?
The servant seed is a symbol I’ve created as a way to understand what God has planted in us at birth and beyond, so we can fulfill our God-given life purpose. It’s a message from God about what he wants us to do, and what he wants to do in and through us. By heeding this message, we become a message from God.
Let that sink in.
By fulfilling our God-given life purpose, we become the message from God he wants to send.
That’s an awesome God-given responsibility. Isn’t it?
God’s comment to Jeremiah in 1:5 exemplifies this: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Foundation of Biblical Servanthood
Your God-given life purpose, my God-given life purpose, is the foundation of our biblical servanthood, even though how we fulfill it can change, because as we evolve as a person, our priorities change in response to different experiences.
The servant seed symbol refers to our family influences, our abilities and strengths, our personality traits, our education, our life experiences, and much more. Taken as a whole, these help us know God, love him, and especially, serve him, fulfilling our God-given life purpose and commitment to biblical servanthood.
When we unearth our servant seed, the embryonic essentials in us that help us increasingly know and love God through serving him, we discover our God-given life purpose. As in Genesis, God reached down and molded you and me out of earthen materials, out of the soil, and planted in us a servant seed in a certain time and place to grow and be productive.
Midlife: A Time to Do Great Things
At any age, but especially in our mid-life years and beyond, when we discover the servant seed and how we are to serve God in whatever way God has purposed for us, we will do even greater things, no matter what we did or not done in the past.
In Philippians 3:13 we read, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”
I wonder how many of people in their 40’s, 50’, 60’s, and even 70’s like me, have gone down on your knees literally or metaphorically, and started digging for the servant seed given them by the one who said in scripture, “You will do even greater things.” It took me many years before I did that, and many more before I finally listened.
The Original Servant Seed
God created everyone who walks this earth for a three-part purpose, to know him, love him, and serve him. This biblical servanthood is clear in scripture, starting in the book of Genesis.
Adam and eve had a wonderful opportunity to do great things. They knew god. They loved god. And they were tasked to serve god by taking care of the world and his garden.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” (Genesis 1:26)
We read in Genesis 2:16, “The lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
Yes, mankind was created for a purpose. When God says he will make humans in his image in Genesis 1 and Genesis 5, he has determined we are to rule and reign, but as the scripture makes clear, in service to him.
Adam and Eve Changed It All
But things changed when God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose, the freedom to choose to continue to know him, to love him, and use all they needed to serve him. They were given, in a sense, the original servant seed, all they needed to serve God and care for his creation.
But they squandered it.
God’s people throughout the Old Testament were no different. They knew they could do great things, and did them when they served God, but they let their gardens be overgrown by weeds and thorns, as they embraced idols and turned from God.
In Judges 2:12 we read, “They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger.”
Servanthood in the New Testament
Can anyone doubt the call for us to biblical servanthood in the New Testament, the mandate Jesus has given us to serve?
Jesus becomes the ultimate servant, and shows us how to serve. He teaches us through his words and by example the importance of servanthood, of being a bondservant to God and a servant to our fellow human beings. From birth to cross, Christ was the picture of humility, servanthood and obedience.
“Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:26-28)
And of course, there’s the gold standard, the golden standard, the foundation of biblical servanthood. "So, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)
In summary, you and I are the way we are for a reason. Who we are, what we’ve experienced, and what drives us to act, symbolized by our servant seed, all play a role in determining how we fulfill God’s purpose for us. And, we can be confident he is directing us on purpose, because he doesn’t make mistakes.
Listen to God's Words
“Believe me when I say that I am in the father and the father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the father.” (John 14:11-12)
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:5-7 )
In Your Words
Reflect on how your family influences, abilities and strengths, personality traits, education, and life experiences have helped you blossom into who God wants you to be, and how he wants you to serve.
Consider how knowing about your servant seed and its connection to biblical servant should change the way you use your time and personal resources in the future.
Mediate on the life of Jesus and how you can know him. love him, and serve him better going forward.
In the Words of Others
“Royalty is my identity. Servanthood is my assignment. Intimacy with God is my source.” Bill Johnson
“When Jesus came in the form of a servant, he was not disguising who god is. He was revealing who God is.” John Ortberg
