It’s kind of a trick question; and I know what most people around the church today would say. Without a doubt, nearly everyone would say, “Yes, of course I’m a servant”, to that question.  But if we’re talking identity, then the answer is not just a little wrong…..it’s a lot wrong! And I think it’s one of the big problems with Christianity today.

Growing up we lived on a 10,000 acre ranch in the Texas Panhandle. My dad leased the ranch; we didn’t own it but we had to run it like we did own it. Over the course of the 25 years we lived there we had a number of hired-hands, some of them good, some not so good. But my mom and dad, Cliff and Charlene Taylor, and my brother, Monty and I…..always worked harder than the hired-hands. We did the things that the hired-hands didn’t want to do, or had left undone. We went the ‘extra mile’, so to speak, in seeing that the work was done around the ranch that needed to be done. We all worked longer hours and constantly carried the weight of knowing that the ranch had to make money or we wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to the hired-hands.

In the story of the ‘prodigal son’, the boy comes home and  tries to tell his dad (God) that he’s willing to be a hired-hand. But the Father would have none of it! There are hired-hands in the story….but this boy isn’t one of them….he’s a ‘son’!

In our Christian lives we’re going to do a lot of serving, …..but the Father never intended for us to have the identity of a hired-hand! He’s hand-picked us as His own sons and daughters……we should start acting like it!