The Least of These

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40). Minister in the original Latin meant servant and was derived from the word minus, which means "less" in Latin. Thus when we act as ministers, we are servants to those whom we serve and are their "less-es". Not that we are worth less than those to whom we minister, but that we think less about ourselves and our selfish desires and more about them and making sure that their needs are taken care of. We should view opportunities to minister not as moments where we have less time to ourselves, but instead that we have chances to make our ministering experiences timeless. When we are ministering we have less ingratitude in our hearts, less doubts in our minds, less cares of the world to weigh down our spirits. By having the courage to make ourselves "less" we can in turn become fearless. By having the humility to think of ourselves "less", we strip away our pride and our vanity and our egotism and become selfless. Our humble efforts to minister and become the "less" will inspire those whom we serve to in their turn become the "less" as they minister to us. With each act of service we become lesser and lesser to each other, until eventually we are well and truly least of all. And then, when we are in the service of the least, then we are in the service of God.