When I was at a conference for youth workers this last fall, I received a sweet (and free!) t-shirt that said, “TO LOVE IS TO SERVE.” I have to say that I was totally stoked when I saw what the t-shirt said because that is a lesson God has been teaching me hard-core over the last couple of years. It’s not about me. Instead, it’s all about loving and serving others. Jesus taught and lived this radical idea of denying oneself to love and serve others. The Apostle Paul speaks of the example Christ set for us in this area in Philippians 2:3-7: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…” So let us follow the example Jesus set for us by living radical lives of humility, love, and service. The light of Christ shines blindingly bright in our lives when we have snuffed the flame of selfish ambition and replaced it with the passionate fire of love and service.
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