By Chris WittsThursday 30 Jun 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Yesterday I asked the question, Are you a person of significance? What is the difference between being successful and being significant and coming to Jesus? Because Jesus says, if anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and be the servant of all.
That’s quite a strange, uh, statement because coming to faith in Jesus requires what we could call a paradigm shift.
Just a complete and radical change within our hearts to a fact that affect the way we act and speak and relate, for example, ambition. It’s human nature, of course, to be ambitious. I mean, if you want to get ahead in life, if you want to be first, to be acclaimed, to have status. And the Bible tells one day when Jesus is there on a teaching mission around his home territory of Galilee and Caponi, and we find the disciples actually indulging in something very surprising. They’re arguing about which of them is the greatest, and Jesus overhears them and says something like, “If you want to be first, you must be last of all and servant of all” – that’s in Mark 9:35.
So there it is. It’s different to being successful. Jesus was saying, Be significant. I mean, ambition translates into being successful, doesn’t it. Being admired by other people? But it seems as we look at what Jesus said, it doesn’t seem to carry much weight with him. He was marching to a different drum beat, so to speak. He wasn’t focused so much on success as on being significant, and he was eternally significant.
So Jesus values a different way of thinking, and he encourages his disciples. He encourages us if you want to be first, make yourself last of all, not that easy to do so. What it means is, don’t strive to be successful over other people’s lives, but rather be significant. Humility, he said, is the thing that matters. It is significant. It’ll make the world a better place. And so he teaches his disciples that if we seek the true greatness of his kingdom, then we must find that greatness by not being number one, by not being first, not trying to be successful or trying to be masters or lord it over other people.
And we can think about some people like that. For example, if I name these people Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, Francis of Assisi. Here are people who have made a real contribution in society by being number one. No, by being servants. And Jesus encourages us to be ambitious, yes, in the right way, the opportunity to serve others and to help.
Jesus was talking about a child, and he said, If anyone welcomes the poor, the ordinary people or this child, people have no influence, no wealth. Then that person, Jesus said, is actually welcoming me. So we might need to put ourselves out. Make sacrifices. I mean, practically speaking, there are many people who are the victims of drug abuse. Many are lost, don’t know their way around. Don’t know the Bible. Many of our older people today. Nobody loves them. They’re lonely. They’ve forgotten what can you do to help them? So there are many, many ways of becoming significant with our abilities and even with our money.
Now I know many of us are what we call time poor. We don’t have a lot of time, but we could ask ourselves, what am I doing with my time. What could I do? Better? We’ve got the talents. We should discover the things that we can do best. We have money. And while it’s imperative that we, of course, are careful where wise in the use of our money and of course we have to provide for our own families surely we’ve got time to share with other people. Let me say that God has gifted you and me in a special way. And so let’s look at things a little differently. Every person is valuable to God, and we should understand that other people are worth serving whether we like them or not, whether they are important or not. And whether we like it or not.
Let’s Pray
My life Lord shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done. Leave countless marks for good. This is the wish Lord, I always wish that prayer. I always pray, Lord, may my life help other lives by the way it touches them. Amen.