Mark 10:44-45 And whoever of you desires to be first shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
A non-commissioned officer was directing the repairs of a military building during the American Revolution. He was barking orders to the soldiers under his command, trying to get them to raise a heavy wooden beam.
As the men struggled in vain to lift the beam into place, a man who was passing by stopped to ask the one in charge why he wasn't helping the men. With all the pomp of an emperor, the soldier responded, "Sir, I am a corporal!"
"You are, are you?" replied the passerby, "I was not aware of that." Then, taking off his hat and bowing, he said, "I ask your pardon, Corporal." Then the stranger walked over and strained with the soldiers to lift the heavy beam. After the job was finished, he turned and said, "Mr. Corporal, when you have another such job and have not enough men, send for your Commander in Chief, and I will come and help you a second time." The corporal was thunderstruck. The man’s name was General George Washington.
We all want to be honored, respected and appreciated. So badly, sometimes, that we try to demand it. The fact is, that these things cannot be demanded or even requested. True honor, respect, and appreciation only come one way. When we become servants.
Let’s ask the Lord to help us to become the servants he would desire. After all, He did set a great example by laying down his life for us.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Our life, the life of faith, is pervaded by paradox. Life faces us with apparently irreconcilable conditions and realities that we struggle to understand and integrate, sometimes throughout an entire lifetime. The Lord himself exemplifies this reality in his dual identity as the expressed image of God and a fully human male who suffered the worst consequences of sin...without deserving them. We live daily within the paradox of God's perfect holiness and our fundamental human imperfection, constantly needing to accept His grace as we strive toward His perfection.
Throughout the history of the modern state of Israel, there have been accounts of angelic interventions protecting Israeli soldiers in the midst of intense warfare. One instance recounted by an Israeli military historian after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, describes an Israeli soldier in the Sinai taking captive an entire Egyptian column and leading them to where the Israeli troops were. The Egyptian commander was asked why he and his men gave themselves up to the lone Israeli soldier. He responded with surprise, ”One soldier? There were thousands of them.”
During 1941 the United States and Japan were in negotiations to resolve their difference as the rest of the world was at war. The special delegation of Japanese ambassadors, ostensibly sent on this “peace” mission, arrived shortly before the massive surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in which 2,403 Americans were killed, 1143 were wounded, eighteen ships were sunk or grounded, and 300 planes destroyed or damaged. President Franklin Roosevelt called it a “date which will live in infamy.”
The world these days is full of bad news, with tensions growing in the Middle East, economies on the brink of collapse, and nature constantly adding to the chaos with one disaster after another. It's a time of trouble all right, and for us believers it may sometimes be hard to believe – but it never is as bad as it seems. Let me illustrate with a joke I like to share with my messages.
When I’m dealing with what is beyond a normal, average trial, I need to muster a more militant attitude, and I remind myself of this promise; the Lord has given me authority to TREAD upon the enemy … to walk in His victory over every trial and tribulation that life brings.
An artist went searching the streets of New York City for a model to pose for a portrait he wanted to call -- 'The Prodigal'. One day was passing Central Park and saw an impoverished beggar lying on a bench and thought: 'He's perfect! That man would represent the prodigal son beautifully in my painting.' He asked the beggar if he would be willing to sit for his painting and he would gladly pay him for his time. Naturally, the beggar agreed.
Moses was used mightily by the Lord, yet we all know he had his inadequacies and limitations too. Still he was the vessel through which God chose to work through as He carried out the plagues over Egypt, divided the Red Sea and miraculously led and fed the children of Israel for forty years. That's pretty big stuff. Can you imagine having to be Moses' successor after all that? That's exactly what Joshua had to do. I can't even begin to imagine what Joshua was thinking at the time -- How can I possibly live up to Moses? But the Lord comforts and reassures Joshua and says, "as I was with Moses, so I will be with you!"