SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/27/2012 9:49:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Servants Shall Be Rulers
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Mark 10:35-45
Message
of the verses: 35 James and John,
the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying, "Teacher, we want You
to do for us whatever we ask of You." 36 And He said to them, "What
do you want Me to do for you?" 37 They said to Him, "Grant that we
may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory." 38 But
Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to
drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am
baptized?" 39 They said to Him, "We are able." And Jesus said to
them, "The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized
with the baptism with which I am baptized. 40 “But to sit on My right or on My
left, this is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been
prepared." 41 Hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and
John. 42 Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, "You know that those
who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great
men exercise authority over them. 43
"But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become
great among you shall be your servant; 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you
shall be slave of all. 45 ‘For even the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.’
In the last SD we spoke a bit about
the coming death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the
SD before that we were talking about the rich young ruler. I did omit one thing that I wanted to make
clear concerning the rich young ruler, and that is that what Jesus told him to
do with his riches is not for all rich people to do in order to gain eternal
life. The riches were an idol to the
rich young ruler and Jesus was telling him that he must forsake his idol and
worship the Lord if he wanted to be saved from his sins, but he did not do
this.
As I listen to the 10th
chapter of Mark this month I was truly amazed at the timing of James and John
in asking Jesus a request right after His statement of going to Jerusalem to
die. Dr. Wiersbe points out that in the
other Gospels that their mother was involved in this, and the reason that Mark
does not write about that is because his gospel was going to Gentiles, to the
Romans. Jesus had told His disciples
that in the Kingdom of God that the disciples would sit on twelve thrones
judging Israel, and so James and John desired to get the best places. I guess when you look at it that way it is
not as bad as I thought it was.
Jesus never misses a chance to teach
His disciples and He takes this opportunity to teach them about humility and
being servants, and as mentioned in an earlier SD Mark 10:45 is the key verse
in the Gospel of Mark and when you look at that verse along with Philippians
2:5-11 you can see the humility of Our Lord:
“5 Have this attitude in
yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with
God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him,
and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name
of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under
the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father.” Verse five
tells us that we are to have this same attitude of humility and so does Mark
10:45.
Jesus talks to His disciples for the
third time in Mark’s Gospel about His upcoming “passion,” and the first time He
mentions this in Mark 8:31 and also in Mark 9:31 He did not mention the place
or who would be causing His death as He does in this section. We see a fourth time in this section that
Jesus promised that He would be raised from the dead, something that His
disciples did not understand until after it happened.
We also see in this section that
Jesus speaks to James and John about the drinking of the cup and the baptism
that He would have to go through and asked them if they were willing to go
through these too. They answered they
were, but did not really understand what He was talking about, but are informed
that they would drink the cup and be baptized as Jesus would be. James would be the first Christian martyr as seen
in Acts 12, and John, according to tradition would be boiled in oil, and then
taken to the island of Patmos where He would eventually die of natural causes,
but while on that island would write the last book of the Bible, the book of
Revelations.
I wish to conclude this section with
the words of Warren Wiersbe: “God’s
pattern in Scripture is that a person must first be a servant before God
promotes him or her to be a ruler. This
was true of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Timothy and even our Lord Himself
(Phil. 2:1-11). Unless we know how to obey orders, we do not have
the right to give orders. Before a person exercises
authority, he or she must know what it means to be under authority. If Jesus Christ followed this pattern in
accomplishing the great work of redemption, then surely there is no other
pattern for us to follow.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Reading a
book on Spiritual Leadership that was about D. L. Moody, (one of my heroes of
the faith), I came to the conclusion that Moody was a great servant which made
him a great leader, and the results of his life are still felt around the
world. Learning to be a servant is a great
goal to have.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Psalm 119:133 “Establish my footsteps in Your Word, And do not let any
iniquity have domino over me.”
Memory
verses for the week: 1Cor. 13:1-7
1 If I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of
prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge; and if I have all faith,
so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed
the poor, and surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits
me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, and
is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act
unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices
with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
9/27/2012
10:43:42 AM
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