Good morning everyone,

Mark 10:37,38-And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to…….

Two brothers come to Jesus with the kind of spirit that desires to be "great" (but with Jesus, to justify it). Because Jesus had yet to die and redefine their defintion of greatness, they looked at ambition selfishly, which is why they asked to be great apart from the other disciples.

Jesus defined greatness by dying to selfish desires for the Father’s will and our benefit. Jesus never used the Father to indulge in what He thought was great for Himself. But the disciples had yet to have this mind renewing experience.

Being renewed to greatness is to be faithful for Christ sake for the benefit of other people. I believe this is what every spouse desires from the other, to not selfishly go after their own ambitions, because that ultimately doesn’t benefit anyone else, but make the other angry for suffering from the others selfishness (vs.41).

But the disciples could not help how they saw Jesus until they had a mind-renewing revelation of what true greatness in Christ meant through His suffering, death, and resurrection. The disciples eventually grapsed that greatness in Christ was not to use Him to make their name great, but to deny themselves daily, take up their cross, and follow Him. Until we have this understanding of greatness, we prove that we don’t know what were asking Jesus for in our desire to be great and influential in whatever we do.

In His Love, Ld