In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel than to hear his word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure…. But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.
–Richard Foster
Are you willing to endure the many little deaths of service for the cause of Christ? Today, if you will answer the call to service, you will have to endure the death of your words in order to use his words, the death of your attitude in order to have his attitude, and the death of your thoughts in order to think of the things of God after him.
And so when someone lashes out at you with a verbal jab, you will have to guard your tongue. Death to self.
And when someone does something else that makes you angry, you will have to guard your attitude. Death to self.
And when your mind wants to take you down a road of thought of negativity or impurity, you will have to guard your mind. Death to self.
It is many little deaths all day long.
God, help us to choose these little self-deaths over our own desires and to endure them well in order to build others up for the sake of better establishing your Kingdom here on earth.