Loving Your Community By Stephen ViarsSample

Day 5

Sometimes Love Is Sacrificial

The disciples, like everyone else at the time, walked on dusty roads in open sandals on their way to eat a meal where they would be reclining in close proximity to one another’s feet. Often a servant would wash everyone’s feet before the meal. On the night of the Last Supper, there was only a basin of water and a towel.

This presented a dilemma for Christ’s followers because they’d been arguing about who was greatest among them and who would have the highest positions of honor in Christ’s future kingdom. Certainly, no one would bow to wash another person’s feet. To their surprise, Jesus did. Jesus went on to say, “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).

What a beautiful picture of godliness and what it means to love others. At that moment, Jesus had every reason to be disappointed in and express righteous anger toward His self-centered disciples. Instead, He looked at the condition of their dirty feet and He washed them.

Later in the evening, Jesus told the disciples: “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). Is that not the true test of whether we truly love someone—that we seek to serve them and meet needs in spite of the way they might choose to speak about or treat us? Love that is instantly reciprocated is merely convenience or self-service. But when it sacrifices even in the midst of mistreatment, then it begins to look like the love of Christ.

What act of service is the hardest for you to offer? What does it cost you—in money, time, skill, or other resources? Consider offering to serve someone in this capacity, then ask God to give you what you need to overcome any reluctance you might have.