The Norman Transcript is going to print this devotional article in the Religion Section of this Friday's paper. If you don't get the Transcript, here is what I wrote:
“Me first!” How many times have you heard this from a child wanting to be at the head of the line, or the next to play with a toy, or the first to get ice cream? For better or worse, children usually don’t hide their true feelings and desires. And so they blurt out “Me first!”. Sadly, as children grow into adults, their manners may improve, but their desire to be Number One doesn’t change. Deep down, who doesn’t want to be “first” – first in honor, power, and status? Who wants to be last? In politics, business, school, and even within families (indeed, within marriages!), people engage in power struggles and seek their own interests above all else. It seems that it’s always been that way. So we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that long ago two of Jesus’ closest followers, the brothers John and James, sought to secure their own privileged standing in the Kingdom of God. They said to Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mk. 10:37). In other words, “Me first!”. But they didn’t realize that this kind of selfish ambition has no place in the Kingdom that Christ came to establish. Their concept of greatness was completely out of place. There is a greatness to be had in the Kingdom of God, to be sure, but it is a greatness that comes from seeking to be last, not first, a desire to be the lesser, not the greater. Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (vs. 43,44). Become a servant? Be the slave of all? What honor is there in that? There is infinite honor in that, because God himself became the lesser; he made himself servant of all. God, in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, set aside his limitless glory and exalted status, and became lower than the lowliest servant by offering himself a sacrifice to pay for the sins of others: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (v.45) If Christ himself came to serve, how much more ought we to humble ourselves and serve one another. Not “Me first!” - but “Me last!”!