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Jesus replied:\xa0\u201c\u2018Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.\u2019 This is the first and greatest commandment.\xa0\xa0And the second is like it: \u2018Love your neighbor as yourself.\u2019\u201d Matt 22:37-39

Service is embedded in the second greatest commandment, to \u201cLove your neighbour as yourself.\u201d\xa0 So, what exactly does that mean?\xa0 The interpretations of this sentence could be numerous, but what it comes down to is that service is being the hands of Christ by offering our resources, our time, our gifts and even our influence to nurture others, administer justice, protect and care for others.\xa0

When I think of the word service the first image that pops into my mind is that of Jesus washing his disciples feet.\xa0 Pure and honest humility. \xa0When He has finished, He asks His disciples \u201cDo you understand what I have done for you?\xa0 You call me \u2018Teacher\u2019\xa0and \u2018Lord,\u2019\xa0and rightly so, for that is what I am.\xa0\xa0Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another\u2019s feet.\xa0\xa0I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.\xa0\xa0Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master,\xa0nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.\xa0Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.\u201d (John 13:12-17)

Martin Luther King Jr. said, \u201cEverybody can be great because anybody can serve.\xa0 You don\u2019t have to have a college degree to serve.\xa0 You don\u2019t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.\xa0 You only need a heart full of grace.\xa0 A soul generated by love.\u201d Luther had it right.\xa0 Service is a soul generated by love.\xa0 Love for all the people of the earth, whether rich or poor, black or white, man or woman or anyone else.

At the root of service is the ability to see another person as a human being worthy of love, respect, and honour.\xa0 Jesus saw His disciples, not as lowly or outcasts of society, but as respectable men of honour.\xa0 Men with whom honour wasn\u2019t resplendent when Jesus called them, but through His example, His teaching and His service, like the washing of their feet, they grew to become more than they could have ever imagined.\xa0 All because Jesus \u201csaw\u201d them and their stories and loved them anyway.\xa0 Love your neighbour as yourself.

What does it mean practically to love your neighbour as yourself?\xa0 It often means leaving your comfort zone in order to risk yourself in the act of service.\xa0 Like some of the other disciplines, service can be a vulnerable place.\xa0 One in which you see what is really inside of yourself and whether you are willing to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.\xa0 Service invites us into a place where interruptions aren\u2019t a bother, but an opportunity to do good towards others.

Some among us serve throughout the city for organizations and that is valuable and necessary in order for Christ to be displayed in our Christian community and community at large.\xa0 For others that may not be presently possible, and service might be as simple as walking across the street or across the hallway and asking someone how you can help them today and taking time to check in with them.\xa0 You might be surprised by the answer.

Service is not a way to measure up, pay our Christian \u201cdues\u201d or as something to lord over others or to act as a replacement for reading the Word of God and intimacy with God.\xa0 Service is reaching out to others with the radical love of Christ and not worrying about what others think of us in the process.\xa0 As we follow Jesus with increasing intimacy, service becomes the norm and not something we have to search out, because where Jesus is, there His Spirit is also.