Love and Serve Your Family

**This was originally posted last June.

 I hope you enjoy it the second time around!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to effectively fulfill my God given purpose in this world. As a Christian, I'm called to love God and love others (Mark 12:30-31). I have a lot of room for growth in both of these areas, but growth in Christ is what this life is all about. I know God has a pretty specific plan and purpose for me (i.e. help this person, serve here, give money here), but in a more generalized sense in order for me to fulfill my purpose I need to lead a life full of love for God and for others.

I'm going to focus more today on the second part of the commandment which is to, "love your neighbor as yourself"(Mark 12:31). Let's assume the use of "neighbor" in this passage means everyone except yourself, therefore, your closest "neighbors" are your family or those that you live with. Are you glorifying God in the way that you treat your family? I've heard it said before that who you are at home is who you really are and everything else is fake. Ouch. It's easy to take advantage of the deep and unconditional love that our families give us. They'll always be there so we can treat them badly and get away with it, right? Not according to God. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves which means always extending patience, grace, love, respect and kindness to them.

It also means serving them out of love. This is a big one for women because a lot of the home and family oriented "service" falls on us. We generally are the ones who buy the food, cook the meals, clean the house, do the laundry, run the errands, pay the bills, buy the clothes, make the appointments, etc. This is a lot of work and its work that is cyclical and never ending. There's no day off and no retirement. It's literally a lifetime of service, therefore we have a huge opportunity in our day to day lives to glorify God by lovingly and joyfullyserving our families. The bible says whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Are you reflecting Christ in the way that you serve your family to a watching world? Do you see the beauty and blessings that can come from serving your family? Christ entrusted these people to us and we are to love and serve them joyfully without grumbling or complaining (Philippians 2:14).

Serving our families should be a joyful thing! It's a big part of our purpose as women and we are blessed to be able to have a family to serve in the first place not to mention the ability to get around and do so effectively. Are you lovingly and joyfully serving your family today? 

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