Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this simple prayer:
Lord of all the earth,
I honour You and live to serve You.
Speak Lord,
Your servant is listening. Amen.
Reading
In the context of James and John’s mother coming to Jesus with her sons to ask that they be given the seats of highest honour in Jesus’ Kingdom, Jesus gave this very clear command:
(W)hoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ (v.26-28)
Like our own Western society, the pagan Gentile society expected that an important person or leader would be served by others. By contrast, Jesus taught that the whole aim of the leader in a group of His people was to serve the best interests of the others – not to get the group to serve their interests or agendas. Talk about a contrast.
Many people in our world (and tragically also in churches) aspire to leadership for what they can receive (emotionally, socially, or materially) instead of for what they can give. This is the attitude Jesus roundly rebukes. He calls us to a better way, His way – the way of servant leadership.
It is also striking that Jesus uses two separate words in v.26 & 27 to describe the role of the faithful Christian leader. The first is “diakonos“, which is a servant who attends to their master’s needs. The second is “doulos“, which refers to a bondservant. This was essentially a slave who committed their entire life to being of service to one master and his family. So to dig into Jesus’ words, greatness in His Kingdom is found when someone serves the needs of others. The height of greatness in His Kingdom is found when this becomes a lifestyle out of reverence for Jesus and out of love for His Family, and not just an occasional expression.
Is this how you view your role in the Kingdom of Christ?
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn one or more of these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus:
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will abandon self-centredness and pride.
- I will seek the highest best of others in my Christian Family, the local church.
- I will adopt a lifestyle of service.
Holy Spirit, purify my heart of all pride and selfish ambition. Give me the heart and mind of Jesus, the ultimate Servant-Leader, Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
but rather made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant. Amen.
Dave's Diary 
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