What is your top five books of all time? Your ten favourite films?
What are the three most important items that you own?
It can be fun going through a top ten, finding out what is voted number one and seeing if you agree.
Human beings have an in-built ability to compare and contrast. To assess and analyse, to come up with our own opinions about what is the best and which is better. In Luke Chapter 22, Jesus friends are arguing about who is the greatest; I wonder what arguments were they making, what examples were they giving. Jesus brakes this up, saying that they should be like children and servants. Then he gives a strange example. He asks who is greater, a master who sits at the table or the servant that waits on them? The master. This seems to go against his first point. But Jesus goes on to say that he came to serve others.
What makes us great, is not the role we have, our position, or job, or reputation, or abilities. It’s how we live out that role. What is our attitude to the things we do and the people around us?
Jesus knew who he was, the son of God, God’s chosen one. That was his role. But his attitude in doing this, was that of a servant. He came to help others. Jesus encourages us to be childlike not childish; to be a team player, even if we are the team leader.
Being great is not just about what we do, it’s about how we do it. We can be successful but alienate others. We can be incredibly talented but outrageously selfish. We can use other people, just to fulfil our own desires. How we treat others is an indication of the type of person that we are.
Jesus’ challenge to us is not to have a low opinion of ourselves, but to have such a high opinion of others that we are motivated to care for them, support them, love them and serve them. The disciples were worried about how great they were. Jesus was motivated by how great he thought everyone else was.
God bless,
Alec
