Serving Challenge Kids: An 11-Day Adventure to Serve Like JesusSample

When Should We Serve?

Have you ever gone to a store only to find out that it just closed or isn’t open yet? It’s frustrating. People can be like closed stores. When you ask them for help, some make it clear they don’t want to take the time. It’s like they put up a “Closed” sign, sending you away, feeling sad or frustrated.

Serving means we are “open” to helping others. For example, you learned yesterday about little acts of kindness that helped immigrant Faez al Sharra escape a dangerous situation. When we notice little things, we can help in big ways.

When you serve, you put the needs of others before your own, which is what Jesus did. As the verse says, “he made himself nothing.” That’s another way of saying He gave up everything to serve us.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing.”Philippians 2:6-7a

You may want to help, but you spend so much time thinking, planning, and organizing that you never actually do anything. Instead, try doing something unplanned. Once you make yourself available to help, just listen. When we sit with people and listen to others, we notice what someone needs.

Before He died, Jesus spent one last meal with His followers, the disciples. This was called the Last Supper, and we celebrate it every time we take Communion. At Communion, we eat Christ’s body and blood and celebrate Christ becoming the greatest servant by dying for us.

Eating with people and fasting were the first steps on the long road to Calvary, where Jesus died on the cross. Jesus was killed on Golgotha, the “place of the skull,” as it was known. Sharing a meal is a way people tell others they care about them.

In yesterday’s reading, not only did you learn about a refugee named Faez, but a woman who helped Faez when he was trying to escape. But, it wasn’t just one person who helped. It took many helpers to get Faez to a safe place. All those helpers use God’s power to serve others. You, too, need God’s power.

When you serve, God will help and give you the strength you need. Count on it.

Challenge:

Share a meal with someone today. You might buy someone’s lunch behind you at a fast food restaurant or invite a neighbor for supper at your house.