Mark 9:35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Who is First in Your Life and How Do You Know?
Who do you know who doesn’t want to be first? You never hear fans in the stadium chanting, “We’re number 3! We’re number 3!” We all want to be number one. As Jesus was travelling with His disciples, He asked them what they were arguing about. They didn’t answer because they were embarrassed about the topic of their conversation.
Their argument was about who is the greatest. Jesus said in verse 35, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.” Because we all desire to be first, it can be easy to suppose we’re serving God when so much of our service is actually self-serving.
Jesus gives two indications here of how to know who is first in your life. The first is found in verse 37 where Jesus sets a child before them and says, “Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.” When you serve kids, you serve Christ. When you serve kids, you serve like Christ. So the first indication of who is first in your life is how you treat kids.
The real question is, “How do you treat those who cannot repay you even if they wanted to?” A child is a good example of such a person. How many people do you serve who could not repay you even if they wanted to?
The second indication of who’s first in your life is how you treat competitors. In verse 38 John answered Jesus saying, “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.” That man was following Jesus, but he wasn’t necessarily following John. So, the second indication of who’s first in your life is, “How do you treat those who will not repay you even if they could?”
When you answer those two questions—“How do I treat people who can’t repay me if they would?” and “How do I treat people who won’t repay me if they could?”—you can gauge who is truly first in your life.