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Day by Day - September 19, 2011

Charles Swindoll Devotional


Servanthood Starts in the Mind

by Charles R. Swindoll

Romans 12:1-3

Wouldn't you love to live courageously in spite of the odds? Doesn't it sound exciting to be divinely powerful in day-to-day living? Aren't you eager to become independently authentic in a day of copycat styles and horrendous peer pressure? Of course!

It all begins in the mind. Let me repeat it one more time: thinking right always precedes acting right. I cannot overemphasize the importance of the renewed mind.

It is really impossible to grasp the concept of serving others—or to carry it outwith joy and without fear—until our minds are freed from the world's mold and transformed by the Lord's power.

I feel the need to add a warning to my urging. A warning against anyone who might "use" others to accomplish his or her purposes. Be very careful not to do that! How easy it is to encourage servanthood so others might serve us.

That is not the way our Master walked and neither should we.

Servanthood starts in the mind. With a simple prayer of three words: "Changeme, Lord."

Reprinted by permission. Day by Day, Charles Swindoll, July 2005, Thomas Nelson, inc., Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved. Purchase "Day by Day" here.