Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Exodus 21-24
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 20:25-28
Jesus: Do you want the Kingdom run like the Romans run their kingdom? Their rulers have great power over the people, but God the Father doesn’t play by the Romans’ rules. This is the Kingdom’s logic: whoever wants to become great must first make himself a servant; whoever wants to be first must bind himself as a slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as the ransom for many.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Here’s another one of those speeches that got Jesus in so much trouble. “God the Father doesn’t play be the Romans’ rules.” Once again Jesus turned the world’s thought process upside down. Aren’t you supposed to work your way to the top? Aren’t you supposed to take your knowledge and wealth and power and find a position worthy of your experience as you get older? Aren’t you supposed to try to gain those seats of power in your workplace, in your home, at church, in your social circles?
That’s what the world tells us. There’s this caste system that’s alive and well around the globe. We make it easier to move between castes in this country. You might be born in poverty in the United States, but there are opportunities to break free from it through education and hard work. Your family caste in this country doesn’t lock you into generational bondage. Although sometimes we make it so by following in our parents footsteps.
In a lot of other countries, castes do determine your future. If you are lucky enough to be born into wealth and a higher caste, then you enjoy the privileges of the wealthy. If you are born into poverty, you are subject to remain there with no chance to break free from its strangle hold as long as you remain in that country. Most of the world, unfortunately, still operates under those ancient caste rules. But even in those rigid caste systems, there still remain glimmers of hope. One person in 50 or 100 might break through the bonds by the kindness of someone in the next caste above and be lifted up from the lower caste into the higher one. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens and so there is hope.
But now Jesus is saying it’s the servant, the slave, the people at the bottom of the caste system that will be held in highest esteem in God’s kingdom. How can that be? These people are the beggars on the streets. You don’t even see them. They are there, but if you keep your eyes up as you should, then they are the invisible vermin that populate the roads and ditches and sewers of the city. Why would Jesus insinuate that these people will be first in God’s kingdom?
The priests thought they should be first. They were the ones who entered into the Court of the Priests at the Temple and one of them each year, the high priest, actually went into the Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement for the whole nation. Shouldn’t they be given the seats of honor in God’s kingdom? Weren’t they closer to God that all the scum that littered the roadways?
Well, the world just doesn’t get it. Outward appearance has nothing to do with God’s kingdom. Our position and prestige don’t move God one iota. He is not impressed by the things that impress men. He made the world, so what can we do that impresses Him? We get impressed by the trappings people wear. Have you looked at the pictures from the Hubble telescope? You want to get impressed, take a look at those. God did that. Do you think anything you wear impresses Him?
But that’s not really it either. There are a lot of criminals, thugs, evil people sometimes found in every level of the castes. The poor have their share of evil just as much as the upper crust. The top tiers can often hide their evil a little better by doing so in the name of corporate investment, saving for future retirement, creating jobs by satisfying personal indulgences, and other such disguises.
But God sees our heart. Jesus talks about a servant heart. Do we serve self or do we serve others and in so doing serve God? That’s what real life is about. God created us to live in community and gave each of us different skill sets so we would be interdependent. We can get along with just a handful of people around us. But we thrive when we give our talents to others and let them give their talents in service to us. When we are interdependent, amazing things can happen. It’s like Proverbs says, a rope of three cords is not easily broken. We really do need each other.
So Jesus tells us it’s the servant’s heart in us that takes us to the top of God’s list. The problem with the wealthy, the power hungry, those seeking position more than anything else, they loose sight of what it means to have a servant’s heart and want to be served instead. Jesus turned it around and the leaders didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense to them because they bought into the world’s rhetoric.
Don’t let the world trap you into it’s idea of success. It doesn’t work. It won’t get you a seat on the bus to heaven. If you want to make it into God’s kingdom, learn to be a servant and practice every day. Practice makes perfect.
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