Waiters in a Heavenly Restaurant
It was his first full-time job, and because of his friend’s help, he was able to be employed at a really nice restaurant. His first customer ordered a salad with lots of dressing, a steak that was very rare, a loaded baked potato, a large glass of sweetened tea and a dessert of that famous chocolate cake with hot fudge in the middle and covered with ice cream.
Will we fulfill the orders?
The order was not that hard to understand, but as the young man went toward the kitchen, he began thinking of how unhealthy the food was for his customer who was obviously overweight. So, he substituted steamed broccoli for the salad and a much smaller steak which definitely would not be rare since he never liked his own steak cooked that way. He made some changes in the potato—it was baked, but he removed all the butter, sour cream, bacon and cheese from it. He changed the sweet tea to water and decided his customer just did not need so rich a dessert.
Your response? He has no right to do that! His responsibility is to listen to the customer and bring everything that is ordered in exactly the way it is ordered. You would be right about that. Servers are to serve. In one sentence, that says it all. Servers are to serve.
Now, think about how parallel the life of this young man is to us in our relationship to God. When Satan tried to change the worship life of Jesus, the Lord replied, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve” (Matt. 4:10). Worshipers of God are servants. We are servants of God, and we only serve Him.
How tragic it is that we lose sight of this. We come into the presence of the “Heavenly Customer” and find out what he wants. He defines true holiness, and we walk away thinking we have a right to redefine it. We are like that young man who thought he knew more than his customer. We are servants of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We let Him tell us what holiness is. We are the sheep, He is the Shepherd.
This “Heavenly Customer” defines marriage; He defines morality; He defines how we deal with enemies; He defines worship; He defines purity and every aspect of our lives. Our relationship to Him is to simply ask what He wants and bring that to Him. By the way, that “Customer” tells us often not to change the “order” by adding or subtracting anything from it (Rev. 22:18-19; Gal. 1:8-9).
Look at all the confusion there is in our religious world. Have you thought this may have come about because far too many “servers” are changing what the “Customer” ordered? God, help us all to let You define holiness, morality, purity and every aspect of our lives. We are servers!