How much joy small acts of kindness and thoughtfulness can bring—joy that blesses giver and receiver! And this is a natural activity. Helping others in an expanded and more spiritual way is also natural, and bestows even greater satisfaction.
It was this expanded sense of giving that Christ Jesus showed his disciples and, through the Gospels in the Bible, shows each of us today. He taught that one's worship of God should involve a profound commitment to ministering to others. At the last supper he washed his disciples' feet as an example of Christian service.See John 13:3-17. Earlier he had appointed seventy other disciples and sent them to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, and rejoiced with them in their success.See Luke 10:1-9, 17-21. And in the parable of the good Samaritan, he illustrated that one's ministry to others can be as wide as one's compassion is deep.See Luke 10:25-37.
Jesus' healing ministry was very public. He exemplified his precept that one doesn't light a candle and then cover it with a "bushel," but that one sets it on a candlestick so that it may bless everyone.See Matt. 5:14-16. He often set that light on a candlestick in very public places, healing and teaching on hillsides, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and in towns and cities.
