Luke 22:24-30: ‘But not so with you…'(please click here for todays passage)

In his book ‘Building below the waterline’, Gordon McDonald  writes honestly about a sobering experience which helped him get his life and motives sorted out. In the early 1980’s he was asked to speak at a conference on world evangelism, held in Thailand. He felt elated to think that he was one of a select few speakers invited to address this prestigious gathering. But then the pride balloon got pricked! A major evangelical leader at the congress chartered a boat, and took 40 of the speakers out to an island, to discuss the future of world evangelisation. Gordon was not one of the ‘chosen few’, and the air whooshed out of his punctured ego. He was now deflated – for a time. But it was a seminal moment in his ministry. He realised that however successful you are; however popular you may be now;however high you rise, there will always be a ’40’ (or it’s equivalent) that you are not part of. His experience caused him to look seriously about his motives.

Jesus valued the company of His disciples, who stuck with Him whilst in His storm-tossed boat, and He promised them a great reward for staying the course (28-30). BUT He saw it as necessary to challenge their worldly desire to sit a top the ‘pecking order’; to rise to the pinnacle of the ‘ladder’ (24-27). How incongruous their ‘dispute’ was, coming off the back of Jesus’ words about self-sacrifice (14-23). But, sadly, such attitudes are still to be found amongst disciples. Churches, and church leadership teams, are frequently riven with political manoeuvring. If we examine ourselves honestly, how many of us will have to admit that selfish ambition lurks, barely disguised, in the shadows of our hearts? So let Jesus’ words rebuke and correct:

‘But not so with you…’

He is ‘among’ us as ‘the one who serves’ (27).

Let’s join Him in ‘the race to the bottom’. According to God’s law of gravity, ‘what goes down must come up.’

Prayer: Help me to understand, Lord Jesus, that the highest position on offer in your Kingdom is that of a servant