True Greatness...

 But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.—Matthew 23:11

Leave it to Jesus to turn our earthly thinking on its head. I know Scripture and if someone asked me what kind of greatness I sought...being great by being a servant of all would sadly not come to mind.  Being great by being more and more like my Jesus would probably not come to mind either.  Why?  Because my thinking is earthly. I conveniently compartmentalize my worlds.  Sure I want to be great in the eyes of my God but in my segregated heavenly vs earthly thinking I can have both.  I can’t.   Paul said this in Philippians Chapter 1:

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

My life is not my own. I have been bought with a price...I am therefore to glorify my God in my body and in my spirit which are God’s. Beloved, in God’s economy true greatness comes when we make His footsteps our pathway....when we walk in complete obedience to our Father in heaven and like Jesus become a servant of all.

For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.—2 Corinthians 5:14-15

May the love of Christ compel us (hold us fast) today. May His self-sacrificing love be what motivates and controls our thinking and our behavior. May our hearts and minds along with Paul’s be that of our Savior’s who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. Help us today, by your Holy Spirit, to live not to please ourselves but to please You. 

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.—Colossians 2:6-7

Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.  5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.—Philippians 2:1-8

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So then death is working in us, but life in you.—2 Corinthians 4:5-12