The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg
Week 6: Chapter 5 — Interrupted (The Practice of Serving)
Read Chapter 5 of The Life You've Always Wanted. Key passages: Mark 10:42-45; John 13:1-17.
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Ortberg reframes service not as a duty that drains us but as a practice that transforms us — and challenges us to examine our hidden motivations for serving and for avoiding it.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Ortberg describes how Jesus redefined greatness — not as authority over others but as service to others. How does this redefinition challenge the values of the culture you live and work in? How does it challenge your own instincts?
2.He is honest that service done for the wrong reasons — for recognition, to manage guilt, or to feel superior — is not actually the discipline of service. It may even deepen pride. How do you distinguish between service as transformation and service as performance?
3.In John 13, Jesus washes his disciples' feet — an act that was culturally shocking. Ortberg dwells on the fact that Jesus knew exactly who he was and where he was going, and that security is precisely what made him free to serve. How does your sense of security — or insecurity — affect your willingness to serve in unglamorous ways?
a.When have you been unwilling to serve in a particular way because it felt beneath you or unnoticed?
b.What would it look like to serve from the security Jesus had?
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