God’s Glory!

#28. July 13, 2015

 2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.

Matthew 23:11-12

 ¹¹”The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Matthew 23 is about the hypocrisy of the teachers of the law during Jesus’ time on earth. Most of the religious leaders of the day had rejected Jesus because he exposed their comfortable situation in society, He threatened their authority, and they were extremely jealous of Jesus’ popularity with the people. Yet because they held the position of Moses Jesus tells the people listen to them, but “do not do what they do for they do not practice what they preach”.

Today the church in America is on the decline for that very reason; young people and others as well see a lot of hypocrisy in some of the leadership and in many of those who claim to be Christian. We do not practice what we preach and we have lost our connection to the Holy Spirit! I know many of us would like to think that the church building and the people who attend are a light in the community and in some cases that is true. But it has been my experience for the 6 years I worked as a church planter in Mich. that the physical shape of the building and the label “Christian” has bad connotations for many people who have experienced the condemnations of the church and the resulting disregard for their spiritual well being. Condemnation is easy to do; we can do it by not saying a word. The fact is that sin is sin: a gossiper or an adulterer is equally sinful in God’s eyes. We must not condone sin but we must walk along side the sinner and guide them to a better place, a place that is pleasing to God. That is an important aspect of the work of the church that has been ignored for too long.

 Jesus gives his disciples the solution to the problem of prideful and condemning leaders of his day and what must change for leaders and Christians today. The answer is in the verses we are memorizing v. 11-12. Here we find a solution and a negative promise but also a positive promise to those who really follow Jesus. Jesus the Messiah is our instructor, no one else; He came to serve and to suffer on a cross. “We are not greater than our master” Jesus tells us. Therefore, leaders must be servants to the flock and especially to those outside of the flock because Jesus “came to save the lost”. It takes humility to serve other Christians but great humility to serve those broken by sin, those over-whelmed with life, and those antagonistic to the church and all it stands for. Serving the lost involves disappointment and suffering. Human nature in us wants recognition even glory but that leads to being humbled, Jesus tells us. Humility in serving leads to glorification but not our glorification but the glorification of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let us humble ourselves for God’s glory and for the building up of the church!

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