The Way We See The World

"Whoever wants to become great must be a servant; the first shall be last and the last shall be first." Also, read Matthew 19:30, 20:1-16, and 20:26-28.

This teaching of Jesus seems to go against our fundamental ideas of fairness and justice. That those who come to Jesus at the end of very bad and immoral lives should be granted the same reward of eternal life with God that others who have been faithful their whole lives receive. We tend to look for punishment, revenge, "justice." But our ideas of these things are informed by our humanity and sinful nature; they depend on our self-centeredness and selfishness. God calls for a different framework. We are all together as one in His kingdom. It's not about me being better than anyone or that type of comparison at all. It is about humility, the attitude of being genuinely happy for the advantages of others without any regard at all for myself. It is the total lack of comparison. This Godly attitude involves seeing others through God's eyes. How hard is this to achieve! Especially when this world, our culture, the hard-to-avoid lens of our sinful nature, all tell us to compare and get all that we "deserve."

Jesus spoke the words in Matthew as a lesson to his disciples as they bickered over their place in heaven and as condemnation of the religious leaders of the day. It is so easy for us now to separate ourselves from people like the Sanhedrin men we read about and the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law who put Jesus to death. We think we are not like them: pious, arrogant, condemned. But there is a real danger of that even today. Many of us have or come close to having the same attitudes. For those of us in the church, it is even more dangerous because we think we know the Scriptures, Jesus, and God. We believe we are doing His will. And many times we are. But if we fail even for a moment to focus totally on Jesus, we may fall into a reliance on our own so-called knowledge and do seemingly good things with bad attitudes, judgment, and arrogance. Isn't this what happened to the Pharisees? They thought and probably truly believed that they were following God's law. They knew the Scriptures and the law handed down by God to Moses. They taught the people that law and followed it to the letter themselves. But their hearts were not in the right place. They followed the "rules" for the sake of those rules and to glorify themselves. How easy it is for us to do the same! It is so easy to revel in the praises of others and the commendations we receive sometimes for doing good instead of humbly glorifying God for any good that has been done and seeing ourselves as the tool and God the one to be praised.

We need to be very careful to keep our focus on Jesus. He must be the center, our purpose and motivation, in all things. For even good things lose value if Jesus is not at the heart of them. This is how we keep our motives pure. In the gospels (such as Mark 14:3-9), the story is told of a woman who poured expensive perfume over Jesus. Those there, presumably including the 12 apostles, rebuked the woman saying that the perfume should have been sold and the money used to feed the poor. Sounds like a good plan, right? Isn't that kind of the way we think of things today? But Jesus disagreed and said that what the woman did was right. It was right because her focus was completely on Jesus and her intent was solely to honor Him. That is the lens through which we should judge our thoughts and actions. The way we see the world matters and the lens we view through matters. We need to see the world the way Jesus does and act accordingly.