Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Proverbs 19
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 10:42-45
Jesus: You know that among the nations of the world the great ones lord it over the little people and act like tyrants. But that is not the way it will be among you. Whoever would be great among you must serve and minister. Whoever wants to be great among you must be slave of all. Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to be a servant—to offer His life as a ransom for others.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Serving in the military for thirty years makes you pretty proficient at understanding hierarchy, chain-of-command, authority, and so forth. A definitive rank structure holds the system in place in an organization that at times requires leaders to send subordinates into battle knowing that some may not return. No one likes war less than soldiers. They understand the stakes involved and although soldiers do as they are told, those that enjoy war are usually discharged because they obviously have something wrong with them. Soldiers detest war.
That hierarchy is necessary in keeping everything moving and working well in war. Someone must determine the objectives that must be taken if the war is to be won. Someone must determine what units and what soldiers must put their boots on the ground to take possession of these key pieces of terrain and deny the enemy their strategic value if the military is to decide the outcome of a conflict.
The various arms of the military work together to put munitions on targets and soften the enemy, perhaps even causing surrender of mass numbers of enemy before soldiers move forward, but ultimately, some soldier with little rank will stand on a piece of ground formerly held by enemy troops before victory can be declared. The generals determine what those targets will be. The generals approve those objectives and the lines and lanes on which soldiers will move to reduce the risk to friendly forces, but maximize the destruction of enemy strength.
The generals orchestrate the battle. Then the orders flow downhill. Colonels pass their part to their brigades and battalions. Lieutenant colonels give their directions to their company commanders to accomplish their part of the mission. Company commanders pass orders to their platoons to further refine their smaller piece of the mission. Platoons give their squads an even smaller part of the overall mission and the squads break the tasks down to team level. The team leader then assigns tasks to each team member. Each soldier has his or her job to do to make sure the generals’ plans are accomplished.
But something is wrong with those organization charts the way they are drawn for almost every military and civilian organization with any kind of hierarchy. You see, just as in the military illustration, although the general approves the plans and determines which objectives to win, it’s the privates who carry out the work. They should be at the top of the pyramid with the generals at the bottom. It’s really all those privates and corporals and sergeants who get the work done.
The same is true in every corporation. There is someone in charge and that person is important, they take a lot of risk and give direction to the company’s employees, but all those employees get the work done every day. Those are the people that make the products, sell the commodities, interface with the customers, make the revenue. Without those folks at the bottom of that hierarchy, the corporation would fold. Are those at the bottom of the chain of command easier to replace than those at the top? Maybe. But that doesn’t make them any less important. That doesn’t decrease their value to the overall accomplishment of the goals and objectives of the leadership.
As Christians in the work force, we need to remember Jesus’ words. Whoever would be great among you must be a servant of all. Remember that the further up the ladder of what the world calls success you might progress, the more important to serve those others might say are beneath you. They are not. They are the ones you hold up so the missions can be completed. They are the ones you lift with your encouragement, your enthusiasm, your resources, so their job can be done and your objectives achieved. You are their servant to make sure they have what they need to do the job you asked them to do.
From Jesus’ perspective, the ones the world thinks are great are not so great. He measures people from the perspective of God. No one measures up. So if you think you are climbing high and about to reach the pinacle of success, just think about where you are compared to God. He owns it all. How much gold has yet to be mined on this planet? How much more is out there in the rest of the universe? How do you measure God’s net value? How many diamonds does God own? What is the value of His real estate? Get the picture? When we compare ourselves to God, no matter how great we might think we are, we are nothing. Yet He loves us enough to come and live alongside us for a while, die for our sins, and give Himself to us to guide us in His truth every day.
We are nothing compared to God, but important enough to Him that He gave His very best for us. Just imagine!
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