Daily Verse
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Serving with Humility
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Saturday's Reflection
Mark 10:45 — For even the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.
This week we looked at what genuine humility looks like — not the performed kind that wears a modest expression in public, but the kind that actually costs something. Clarence Jordan walked away from a prestigious academic career to live and farm alongside poor Black families in dangerous Jim Crow Georgia, and asked to be buried in an unmarked grave when he died. John Perkins went back to the state and the community that nearly killed him, and spent fifty more years there building schools, clinics, and housing because he believed the gospel demanded it. Jesus Himself knelt on the floor with a towel and washed the feet of the men who would betray and abandon Him within hours. And John the Baptist watched his movement decrease and said it was the best news he had ever heard.
All of them were practising the same thing — a willingness to be small in the eyes of the world in order to be useful in the hands of God. Not smallness as a performance, not modesty as a strategy. Just the genuine, quiet, sometimes costly choice to put Christ first and others ahead of themselves. Paul called it the mind of Christ. Jesus called it greatness in the Kingdom. The world will generally not understand it. But it is the most powerful and the most lasting thing a person can do with their life.
On this Sabbath, we rest in the One who came not to be served but to serve. We are not asked to earn our rest today — it is a gift, freely given, by the One who gave everything. Rest well. And go back out on Monday with a towel in your hand.
"When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. It is the privilege of every Christian, not only to look for, but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, p. 69)
Prayer: Father, thank You for a Saviour who came to serve. This Sabbath we lay down our need to be noticed, our desire for recognition, our competition with one another. We rest in You — the One who had everything and chose to become small for our sake. Amen.