Why do we follow Jesus?We must always check our motives. Matthew 20:20-28 The disciples, of course, had left everything to follow Jesus. They were being mentored by him to become leaders in the future church, and in that process were being taught to preach and to care for people. But sometimes their motives got a little messed up. In this passage we read that the mother of James and John came to Jesus with a request. The request was for honor and power. Now, to be fair to this woman, you have to remember that in the previous chapter, verse 28, (19:28) Jesus said that the disciples would be on thrones in the new kingdom. So he talked about honor and power in that context. Apparently, this mother and her two children discussed that teaching and decided that if they were going to be on thrones anyway, they might as well have the positions of special honor and glory. And the way the story reads, it seems that the brothers put their mother up to this. So what was their motive? Honor, glory, power. Thats what they wanted. When they started out following Jesus I suspect their motive was to experience God more deeply and meaningfully. Then, as they realized that Jesus was about restoring the Kingdom of God on earth, their motive began to drift to things like power and honor and glory. They still hadnt grown to understanding that the motive for serving others is simply that it is the right thing to do. They still didn’t realize that the motive of serving people naturally springs from loving Jesus. It’s doing the kinds of things that Jesus would do. Key to improving your serve is to look to your model. Jesus calls his disciples together and gives them a principle. In the world, he says, this is the natural way of things: authority, power, glory, honor. In the worlds system we should be expending as much energy as we possibly can to get to the top. But among us, the followers of Jesus, he says, a different value should be at work. We should be people who serve. In verse 26 Jesus says, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” Interesting word, isnt it? Slave? A slave is someone who really has no rights and no honor. The whole purpose of the life of a slave is to serve his or her master. In other words, our purpose is to serve Jesus. Our whole being should be directed to the cause of Christ, and the way we do that is by serving other people. Our primary mission is to minister to people, not be admired by them.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 23:19:31 +0000
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