Monday Sept. 16
Today’s Reading- Mark 10:32:45
Years ago while staying with relatives, I remember how part of the trip included visiting the church they attended. After a wonderful service, we were invited to join the potluck lunch which followed. While sitting at a table enjoying a very delicious meatball, an elderly woman with a round pleasant face sat down in the chair next to me. “Well, no one volunteered to organize the bake sale”, she said loudly enough for all to hear. And after letting out a big sigh added, “So of course I offered. You know I’m always willing to sacrifice for a good cause.” And with that she was off to share the same story to the next set of ears. “Who was that?”, I asked the woman next to me. She replied, “We call her Martyr Myrtle. She volunteers for everything. But she only does so for a pat on the back and to make herself feel important.”
James and John were a couple of Martyr Myrtles. While on the road to Jerusalem, Jesus “took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him.” (vs. 32) Can you imagine the thoughts that were swirling in the minds of the disciples after hearing all of the atrocities the Lord was about to suffer, and the great sacrifice He was going to make? The thoughts of James and John? They were about their own importance. They approached Jesus asking, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and One on Your left, in Your glory. But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism which which I am baptized?’ They said to Him, ‘We are able’.” (vs. 36-39) The pair were quick to promise to suffer and sacrifice like Jesus. A promise they couldn’t keep, and a promise made not for His glory, but their own.
Even after all the time they spent following Jesus, James and John still didn’t get it. Jesus isn’t about self importance or self glory, Jesus is about sacrifice. He sacrificed His place in heaven ruling with the Father to come to earth. He sacrificed all the pomp and circumstance befitting a King to live as a pauper. He sacrificed His own needs to tend to the needs of others. He sacrificed His pride, allowing His jailers to mock and spit upon Him. He sacrificed His body to be tortured and beaten beyond recognition. And most gloriously of all, He sacrificed His life, dying nailed to a Cross so that we can live forever.
One of greatest lessons Jesus wants all of us as His followers to learn, is sacrifice. James and John thought about their own greatness. But Jesus says greatness isn’t found in power and glory, instead it’s measured by our ability to live our lives as servants and slaves to others. The Lord Himself says, “For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (vs. 45) “You want to be great, do something great for God? You want to please and honor the Lord Jesus with your life? Then become a servant. Such a person will have the mind of Christ, esteeming others better than himself, looking out for their interests. Such a person, like Jesus, will live life not giving attention to their own interests, but to those of others.”...Daniel Akin. So today, be like Jesus; be willing to sacrifice, be willing to serve, and be willing to be great!
