<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, \u201cIf anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0(Mark 9:35)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Mark was careful to record that Jesus said this after\u00a0He sat down<\/strong>. This was important because by sitting down, Jesus showed that he was going to teach. It was the custom in those days that a Rabbi, when teaching \u2013 especially teaching something important \u2013 would sit down while His listeners stood. This was a way to say, \u201cThis is important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question at hand (Mark 9:34) was, \u201cWho would be the greatest?\u201d This seemed to be one of the favorite topics of conversation among the disciples. Jesus could have answered the question, \u201cHey everybody \u2013 don\u2019t forget that\u00a0I\u2019m<\/em>\u00a0the greatest.\u201d But Jesus did not put the focus on Himself. For an example of greatness, Jesus put forth the\u00a0last<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0servant<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Of course, Jesus\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the greatest in the kingdom \u2013 no one is greater than He is! So, when He said\u00a0last<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0servant<\/strong>, He was really describing Himself, and He accurately toldus about His nature. Christ was truly\u00a0first<\/strong>\u00a0in all the universe, yet Jesus made Himself\u00a0last of all and servant of all<\/strong>\u00a0for our sake.<\/p>\n
In this, Jesus challenged His followers to be\u00a0last of all<\/strong>. The desire to be praised and to gain recognition should be foreign to a follower of Jesus. Jesus wants us to embrace\u00a0last<\/strong>\u00a0as a choice, allowing others to be preferred before us, and not only because we are\u00a0forced<\/em>\u00a0to be last.<\/p>\n
Jesus also challenged us to be the\u00a0servant of all<\/strong>. In the worldly idea of power, a great man is distinguished by how many people serve him. In ancient China, it was sometimes fashionable for wealthy men to grow their fingernails so long that their hands were unusable for basic tasks. This demonstrated that they did not need to do\u00a0anything<\/em>\u00a0for themselves; a servant was always there to wait on them. The world may think of this as greatness, but God does not. Jesus declared that true greatness is shown not by how many serve you, but by how many you serve.<\/p>\n
In the following verses, Jesus used a child as an example of kingdom greatness. In that day, children were regarded more as property than individuals. It was understood that they were to be seen and not heard. Jesus said that the way we receive people regarded like children shows how we would receive Him.<\/p>\n
Because Jesus is\u00a0last of all and servant of all<\/strong>\u00a0and in some sense like a child, when we honor and receive a child \u2013 or someone who is a servant like Jesus \u2013 we honor and receive Jesus Himself.<\/p>\n
Do you want to be great? It\u2019s not bad to have ambition, but we should be ambitious to serve others \u2013 not to have them serve us. That is the way of Jesus, who was truly the greatest in the kingdom. (Guzik)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, \u201cIf anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.\u201d\u00a0(Mark 9:35) Mark was careful to record that Jesus said this after\u00a0He sat down. This was important because by sitting down, Jesus showed that he was going … Continue reading “64.d. Mark 9:35”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195715"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195718,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195715\/revisions\/195718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}