Set Aside Your Rights, Humbly Serve in Love

I currently am in a season of living at home with my family.  A season that has been challenging and such a blessing in many different ways.  The Lord has been so faithful to teach me so many lessons through this time of my life, and for that, I am incredibly thankful.  While I wish to avoid making the exhausting details of my life public for all to see, there are a few highlights that God has shown me that I feel burdened to share with whomever the Lord leads to read this.

Jesus lived a perfect life.  A sinless life.  The kind of life that God requires.  A life that I could never live.  Not when I have such a wicked, selfish heart.  But Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and then rose again.  He performed the most beautiful exchange ever.  He took my sins, the death I deserved, and all my shame.  And in return, I get to claim His righteousness, His victory, His eternal and abundant life, and I get to have a personal relationship with the living and active God.

How could I not love Him in return?  He has pursued a meaningful, amazing relationship with me.  Little old me.  I have done nothing to deserve this.  It's a gift.  A beautiful one.  It cost me nothing.  It cost Jesus His life.  Because of Christ's sacrifice, I have been saved by grace through faith, and have been adopted by God the Father.  I am a daughter of the King.  I'm a princess. And that means I acquire Jesus' royal and imperishable inheritance! But this is, by God's grace, what I've been learning:  Following Jesus means setting aside my sparkly crown and rights to humbly serve others in love, so that they too may see the face of Jesus, and be adopted into the ever-growing royal family.

Jesus Christ is not just my Savior.  He is not just my Lord.  He is also my example.  Sometimes, especially in this season of my life, I don't know what to do.  But I can look to Jesus and see how He lived as an example of how I'm called to live.  Ephesians 5:1&2 says, "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."  And, of course, there is the Great Commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39)

Living at home right now means many different tasks.  But it mainly consists of helping with my twelve-year old twin cousins and being a caregiver to my mother who is battling non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and undergoing stem cell replacement in hopes of complete remission.  In all honesty, I did not expect that a year after graduating college, this is where I'd be.  But it's where the Lord has placed me.  And I'm thankful.

Last September, I started working as a mental health worker at a psychiatric hospital.  My unit: The Adult Intensive Inpatient Unit.  My patients:  Adults with schizophrenia, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, etc., who were somehow involved with the court system.  The Lord has truly blessed me through this job and through my patients.  My eyes have been opened.  My faith has been strengthened.  My heart has grown.

But sometimes, in order to serve better, sometimes we have to make sacrifices.  I had started to become emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted.  And while I know that I am a new creation in Christ, and I can claim His victory, I am an individual who had previously battled depression and anxiety for many years.  When I started to relive some symptoms, I knew that God wanted me to seek Him for guidance.  With prayer, wisdom from other believers, and lots of tears, I decided to put my three week notice in at work.  Before finding a new job.  But I knew God would provide.  And He did just that.  Now, with a weekend job in a different environment, I can have more time and energy to focus on serving my family.  And in serving them, God has shown me so much Truth and Love.

1. My Father has taught me that it's best to be honest.  There's no point in trying to pretend you have it all together.  I sure don't.  "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9&10 
2. Keep in mind that serving others shouldn't take the place of quality time spent at the feet of Jesus.  Take a look at the story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). 
3. When you pour out onto others, God will replenish you. (Isaiah 58:10&11)  And Proverbs 11:25 tells us that "Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered."
4. Humbly serving others in love is something you really cannot do in your own strength.  It's the Spirit living in and through you.  Have faith that He'll do it. Galatians 2:20 reminds us: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." And Galatians 3:2&3 points out: "Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" 
5. Abide in Christ.  Rest in His Truth.  Don't strain to do things in your own strength. John 15:5 reminds us of this Truth: "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." 
6. And when you serve others in love, remember that "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)