The phase that is often spoken by people that have a job they don’t like is, “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it”. Well in the Christian life, living for God sometimes is the same way. Christians are called to love and serve even when it is unpleasant.

In St. John 13:2-17, Jesus showes us true servanthood by washing the disciples feet. Jesus lays aside His clothes and gets a towel and washes the disciples feet. God washed human feet to show us humbleness and humility.

Real Servanthood was demonstrated by our Lord. He was all God serving weak man. It should have been the other way around, the disciples washing His feet yet He washed their feet instead.
If God served people then we must also serve. If He became a servant, we must become servants. Do you feel it beneath you to do such tasks for others? Well that is why I called it a dirty job.

A dirty job is work that no one else would like to do. Name some jobs you would not like to do. Clean out a sewer drain. Change a baby’s diaper. Clean the bathroom toilet and commode. Clean up garbage and pick it up from a sanitized room.
All these jobs are unpleasant to do yet God has called us in this world as Christians to serve others this very way. It may be distasteful and very unpleasant yet God has asked us to do it.

As a Christian the the dirty work that our Lord has asked us to do is Love one another. St. John 13:34,“A new commandment I give unto you that you Love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another”.

A example of distasteful work would be taking care of a handicapped person or an invalid. Having to clean them, feed them, dress them, and groom them can become very unattractive and become some very unhappy activities. Doing these tasks would be unpleasant yet they would have to be done because the person can not do them for themselves.

The same way in living for the Lord. God knows that it will not be easy to love people. Why? Because people are sometimes hard to love. When they are hating you. When they are using drugs.
When they steal from you. When they live immorally having sex with everybody. When money and possessions have become their God. When they dishonor their parents. God says love them. Love them regardless.

Put this principil in place Remember, Faith, and Labor (Work).
1 Thess. 1:3, “Remember without ceasing your work of Faith and Labour of Love”.
Just as Jesus laid aside his clothes(garments), we are to lay aside our pride, our ego, our self and anything that would keep us from serving. Resisting the temptation to stop serving our brothers and sisters to be like Christ. Christ did it we should do it.

Note that next we are to pick-up His towel and use it. Use Christ righteousness to wash that fellow person’s feet. Use His love, not our love. Use His patience, not our patience. Use His kindness, not our kindness. When we use and allow God’s strength instead of our strength, then we will be found serving the right way.

St. John 13:4, “He rises from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel, and girded himself”. He took off His many glorious attributes in heaven and put on human form to come to earth to live and die for sin. ‘Girded himself’ means He prepared himself to suffer with the dirty task of dying for sin.

in your life. Remember three words when cleaning up a dirty distasteful job. Water, Wash, and Wipe are three necessary things in any clean-up process.

In St. John 13:5 which says, “After that He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.”
1 John 4:7,11,12,20,21