Daily Blast - The Book of Matthew: Chapter 18
Scripture
“About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”
2 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven”
Reflection
Let’s start today at the beginning of this chapter. Do you ever read the Bible and think – this person was looking for a specific answer from this question. It amuses me when characters from the Bible do this and then get an answer that they’re not expecting. “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”. I wonder what answer he wanted Jesus to give… “You are my loyal follower” or “those who do exactly as I say, exactly when I say what I want them to do” or “those who like to be seen following me”. Imagine if Jesus gave one of those answers, what a plot twist, but unsurprisingly Jesus gives a very Jesus answer which probably stunned the asker of the question. Verse 4 sums it up amazingly, “those who become humble like children”.
Humbleness is a weird thing that even those who are trying to be humble never really know if they’re succeeding at it. Tell you who was a humble guy, Moses, in Exodus 12:3 it says “Now Moses was very humble – more humble than any other person on Earth” – what a statement! But then again, Moses was also the author of Exodus so the view might be a bit bias!
But on a serious note, humbleness is important. God doesn’t want us all going around with big signs saying “look at me, I’m humble because I follow God”. But He also doesn’t want us to be putting ourselves so far down the pecking order in our own heads that we start seeing ourselves as insignificant and worthless. As Tony Stark once said to Peter Parker, “There’s a little grey area and that’s where you operate”.
Challenge
As it says above it can be very difficult to know when you are being humble – sometimes you can over-egg it and come across cocky and other times you don’t give yourself enough credit from things.
Think back to a time when someone complemented you about something. For example, you’ve spent ages slaving away in the kitchen making an apple crumble. Finally, everyone sits down to dinner to eat it and everyone is saying how good it tastes. If that was you, how would you respond to your guests? Blush and say “it was nothing really”, announce to the room that you’re the best baker ever and that you’re going to sign up to The Great British Bake Off, or thank your guests for complimenting the crumble and accept their gratitude and pleasure from it.
Next time you’re in a similar situation, stop and think how you want to react. Keep in mind Jesus’ message and humble yourself in that situation.