Joy In Serving: Devotions From Time Of Grace MinistrySample

Two: My Family

The beautiful truth that Jesus Christ found joy in serving you doesn’t stop there. He redeemed you not only to get you to heaven someday but to initiate your personal transformation right now and to make you more like him right now and to make you useful in bringing benefit to the lives of other people right now.

Joy in serving is not learned on the streets. Strutting and taking and bravado generally rule there. It doesn’t play well in the movies either. The traits of beauty and strength that we idolize in people usually turn out to be pretty self-serving, don’t they?

You know where the attitude of a servant is best taught and modeled? Right in your home. You probably can’t respect a boss until you’ve first learned to respect your father. You probably won’t serve others well until you’ve first learned to serve your mother. The younger parents start with “joy in serving” therapy for their children, the better.

My Family: Mutual submission

I read recently that China’s leaders are finding out that their “one child” policy is producing a whole generation of spoiled and self-centered only children. I guess I’d have to agree that siblings sure can keep you humble.

At our family’s last holiday gathering, the pictures and movie clips that brought most shrieks of laughter and mockery were those that portrayed family members in an embarrassing way. I hope my relatives were laughing with me and not at me.

It’s not such a bad thing to be taken down a few pegs. Satan is always trying to get us to self-inflate with the flatus of ego. It is a good thing to make oneself small and others big. St. Paul wrote, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

Home is a great place to practice complimenting, comforting, and cleaning up after other people. Home is a great place to practice treating other people as more important than you, of extending yourself and expending yourself to make somebody else’s life better. If you can’t love your parents, siblings, and kids unconditionally, you probably won’t be able to do it for anyone.

Why put yourself through this? Out of reverence for Christ, of course.