Every day, we are faced with new challenges, recurring problems, and busy schedules. We are distracted with responsibilities, exhausted with health problems, and confronted with people we do not find very likable, let alone lovable. With our own struggles to worry about, we sometimes forget that there are others around us who are in need of help and silently suffering. Because we are naturally selfish, we often consider our own priorities more pressing than the needs of others, or how we want to spend our time and money more important than diverting our attention away from our own path. We are all susceptible to getting wrapped up in our own lives, but it saddens God when we do. Christ did not die so that we could continue living in our old ways, bound by selfishness and sin, but sacrificed Himself on the cross so that we could be free and leave our old self behind. But, we cannot be truly free if we continue walking with blinders on. To fully enjoy our freedom, we must recognize the needs of others and humbly serve them. The Son of God came down to us as the humblest of servants and sacrificed all that He had to serve us to the very end, giving up even His life without hesitation in the service of our salvation. Only the most faithful and loving of servants would lay down their life for their master, and that is just what Christ did for us while we were still sinful and unredeemed. Though He was great, He made himself lowly to love and serve us, and He calls us to the very same service. He gave us the perfect example of a servant to model ourselves after, so that we might rise to greatness by making ourselves last in our minds and loving others first. Only by putting others before ourselves, sympathetically putting ourselves in the shoes of others, and serving the needs of others while expecting nothing in return, can we become more Christ-like. His greatest service to us was our salvation, and to acquire it He had to give up His life, however we can give others this same eternal gift easily through serving by leading them to salvation, and honoring our Lord’s sacrifice. Our Father rejoices when we can bring another into the fold by making ourselves more Christ-like, and He rewards us in heaven eternally. Just as Christ, the Most High, brought Himself to kneel on the floor to wash the feet of His disciples, so we must bring ourselves down to be a servant of all. No matter our position, manager or employee, leader or follower, wealthy or modest, in order to grow as a Christian and mature spiritually into someone who can experience life to the fullest with peace and joy, Christ desires that we follow in His image and lovingly serve because He first served us.

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” John 13:3-5

“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” John 13:13-15

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Galatians 5:13-14

“But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43-45

“But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” Luke 22:26-27