Take a few deep breaths to center your heart and your mind as you prepare to meet with God.

Meditation on God

Jesus came to the world not to be served, but to serve. Ask yourself: do you have the heart of Jesus? Do you have a servant’s heart?

Teaching

They were now on the way up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were filled with awe, and the people following behind were overwhelmed with fear. Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus once more began to describe everything that was about to happen to him. “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him with a whip, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.” Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.” “What is your request?” he asked. They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?” “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup and be baptized with my baptism of suffering. But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. God has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.” When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:32-45)

For the second time in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus plainly tells the disciples what’s going to happen when they arrive in Jerusalem. Like He did in chapter 8, Jesus tells the 12 disciples that He will be betrayed, handed over to the religious and civil authorities. He will be mocked, beaten, mistreated, and ultimately killed. But, after three days He will rise again.

In chapter 8, we see the reaction of Peter which is to rebuke Jesus and tell Jesus that this must not be so. To which Jesus sternly tells Peter to “Get behind me, Satan.” Here we see something perhaps even more disturbing. After hearing about Jesus suffering and dying, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, pull Jesus aside and asked Jesus for a favor, and it’s a big favor. James and John want to be placed in the highest seats of honor next to Jesus. James and John appear to be completely ignorant of the agony that Jesus has just described, and instead are thinking: “what’s in it for me?” In other words, James and John are only thinking about themselves. “How can I be honored or elevated?” Or “how can I look good to the rest of the

world?”

What Jesus teaches His disciples – and us – is that this way of thinking is wrong. The world’s way of caring about yourself above all else is the opposite of how Jesus teaches us we should think and act. This selfishness is not the kingdom’s way of thinking, and it is not how the kingdom works.

In contrast, Jesus says that we should be different – radically different than the world. In verse 43 Jesus says “Among you it will be different.” And what does this difference look like? How are we to be different than the world? Jesus says if you want to be a true leader, you must be a servant. If you want to lead, you must be a slave. If you want to really elevate yourself in God’s kingdom, you need to forget about yourself, forget about your status, forget about striving to look good in the eyes of others, and instead become like Jesus, a servant. A servant of God and a servant of His children.

Jesus defines his ministry in verse 45 when He says that He came not to be served, but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many. That is both radically different, and it’s hard to do. It goes against human nature. And in fact, under my own strength, it’s impossible to do. But Jesus never calls us to do the impossible. We can do it, but only if we humbly submit ourselves to Christ and to the Holy Spirit. Our prayer should be like that of John the Baptist who in the Gospel of John Chapter 3 verse 30 says, in speaking of Jesus, that “He must become greater, and I must become less.”

Examination

Take a moment and think about a person in your life who has shown you a servant’s heart.

Do you have a servant’s heart like them?

Memory Verse

As you go throughout your day today, think of ways that you can show a servant’s heart toward others, and take the heart of Jesus as seen in Mark 10:45 with you:

“The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)