Greatness is about serving all others

​In Jesus' day, greatness was about power and authority. Anyone who tried to mess with that definition found themselves hanging on a cross.

Further, anyone who wanted to make that definition about serving others, well, those folks had to WILLINGLY climb up on that cross.

Like Jesus did.

Jesus made a bold proclamation with that climb. He was proclaiming that the secret to life really isn't that hard. It's downright simple.

Trade in your desire to be served for an unconditional willingness to serve others - ALL others - and bingo - life.

I would argue we still have a long way to go with that definition of greatness. Maybe even further to go than we had to go when Jesus was hanging on that cross.

I would argue greatness, at least in our country, is still defined by those who have the power and authority. But here's the thing - those in power and authority aren't the ones writing that defintion.

We are.

And if WE ARE is too strong, well I'll back down a little bit and simply say, I am.

Because the reality is, when my life is a struggle, when my heart is breaking, it's almost always about the things I'm missing in my life and not the things I see missing in someone else's life. It's almost always because I'm wrestling with ways to make my life better and not what can I do to make everyone else's life better.

The most dangerous part of my being too focused on me? It allows others to not only define what greatness is, it allows them to also define what it means to follow Jesus.

And when a whole church gets focused on catering only to those in the church, only to those who look like the church, well our churches let others define what it means to follow Jesus too.

You know, I don't have to tell people that I believe running is important in my life. That's because I run.

I don't have to tell people writing is important to me. That's because I write.

When things are truly important to us, when we believe strongly in things, people don't need us to tell them about it. We need no words.

Too many days, I think, I'm left telling people that Jesus is important to me. I think our churches are left telling people that Jesus is important to them. That's because too many days I and the church leave the taking care of others to the powerful and those in authority.

We perpetuate the definition of greatness that Jesus died on a cross to forever change.

You know, we read about this Jesus character in the bible. That's how we know about him. But sometimes we forget, Jesus didn't spend his time on earth writing that bible. He wasn't sitting around some table writing an instruction manual for us.

Jesus left the writing for others.

That's because Jesus was too busy going into the world seeking out chances to serve those that others refused to serve. That's because Jesus was too busy looking for the hopeless so he could deliver hope. That's because Jesus was too busy climbing up on a cross to put an exclamation point on the new definition of greatness.

Greatness is now about one thing, he was saying: SERVING.

And it's us, not those who are in power and authority who can best re-write that definition today. A re-writing that requires no words.

Just serving.