Mother Teresa was the best at this! She writes,

“Poverty is necessary because we are working with the poor. When they complain about the food, we can say, we eat the same. They say, ‘It was so hot last night, we could not sleep.’ We can reply, ‘We also felt very hot.’ The poor have to wash for themselves, go barefoot. We do the same.”

“We have to go down and lift them up. It opens the heart of the poor when we can say we live the same way they do.”

“Sometimes they only have one bucket of water. It is the same with us. The poor have to stand in line; we do too. Food, clothing, everything must be like that of the poor. We have no fasting. Our fasting is to eat the food as we get it.”

This sounds like Jesus’ approach to service!

St. Paul said that Jesus, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)

It may be true that, the only way to effectively, positively change someone is to identify with them. (Check out these verses too)

So here’s the question, “What am willing to give up to serve people?”

The effectiveness of my service may well depend on the extent of my sacrifice. 

And the same goes for you…