You mean I have to serve them?

John 13: ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

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Snobbery was the tone that my neighbor constantly spoke. He would mention “they” and “them” all the time, unaware that his tone was offending me. “Serve him” was the message from GOD to me. “What?” “Serve the one person who definitely does not deserve to be served?!” “LORD YOU have got to be kidding!?”

• My thoughts about who “deserves” to be served are born out of judgment.
• My desire to serve those “I” choose is born out of sin.
• My pattern of “not” accepting the way someone serves me shows I am too proud to be served.

Throughout the years I have arrogantly gone on trips to “help those people,” putting them in the poor and needy box. Maybe I was serving them with my action, but not my attitude. JESUS showed me that serving people is just like breathing, it’s necessary and should be done all the time.

HE willingly washed the feet of the person who would betray HIM, now that’s mercy!

• GOD wants me to serve people without wanting something in return.
• GOD wants me to serve others in spite of lack of resources or lack of time.
• GOD wants me to serve those who seem to tap dance on my last nerve and HE wants me to want the best for them.

I wondered why GOD has me serving people who don’t deserve to be served. Then it hit me, because I don’t deserve to be served. In the middle of my sins, JESUS loved me. HE served me by sacrificing HIS life and wanted nothing in return but my feeble faulty belief. All HE asks is that I do the same, knowing I could never repay HIM, but out of delight that HE cares for me.

• Are you willing to serve “that” person?
• Does “that” person cause you to look at yourself and see things you don’t like about “you?”
• Will you stop picking and choosing who and how you will serve people?
• Can you accept the way people serve you without judgment?