3rd March 2025

I am making cookies for my 24 grandchildren: one is my daughter’s child and the other 23 are my adopted children from her sixth-grade class. I am always doing things on the outer fringes for my daughter’s class, like painting the walls, sewing up the class stuffed comfort pet, or even buying supplies for various essential things or even things that are just downright comforting. It wasn’t until one child called me her grandmother that I realised my service was for Jesus. Jesus has a tender heart for children. We tend to think our ways of serving God are just church-related, evangelical, or something grand and sacrificial like missionary work, but we can and do serve Jesus every day in our fragile transitory life here on earth. So, when asking Jesus how I can serve him, I never thought it could be in this way.

As the header scripture says, we are to become like him, become like Jesus. Is it possible I wonder, how could I even come close to this? The verse also tells me how I am to do this; I am to learn to know who my Creator is and what he is like. I am trying to emulate him. This is going to take a long time, so I am glad we have an eternity to do so. I must start small. but in time I will learn more and more about who Jesus is. I look forward to that task. And I look forward to slowly becoming the new me, one like Jesus in character, one who is willing to serve in all the places I am sent, even behind the scenes. It is behind the scenes that I feel the most comfortable.

The small voice in my head said that I should not discount the service to his children as something small at all, he deems it of great worth. How often do we discount what we do daily as just our day-to-day routine? We do it as if it is for Jesus, and it is. We do it as if Jesus is there, and he is. I have come to realise that I am not just someone doing his work, but that Jesus is doing his work through me. You see, the work is Jesus’, and the power behind what I do is his. I am an apprentice learning how to do the work of Jesus. I am learning how to be the new me that Christ has made me to be, and personally, it feels good. I am the instrument and Jesus is the melody, the song, the power behind what I do for him. He allows me to sing along with him as I love his children.

Jesus is the great example of serving his Father. Do you see how God works in unison, in a great harmony together to save and love their children? I do not remember any one of them complaining about being misused by the others, or anyone trying to steal the show. Jesus walked into a locked room, but he also held and pointed out the worth of children. What is of great worth in the eyes of God is not always what we humans see as valuable. Never discount your work for Jesus, for as it is said, nothing we do for him ever goes to waste (1 Corinthians 15:58).

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