Daily Devotional For Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Good morning Southside. Well, it seems that “old man winter” decided to come back. What a difference from last week. Therefore, how about letting the Word of God warm your hearts during this brief cold spell. We are in the Gospel of Matthew going verse by verse. Today, we come to Matthew 20:20-28. We did not finish this yesterday, so let’s learn from the last half of this conversation Jesus is having with His disciples:
“Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. (21) And He said to her, ‘What do you wish?’ She said to Him, ‘Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.’ (22) But Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ They said to Him, ‘We are able.’ (23) He said to them, ‘My cup you shall drink; but to sit on My right and on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father.’ (24) And hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers. (25) But Jesus called them to Himself and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.(26) It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, (27) and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; (28) just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many’” (NASB).
As we saw yesterday, Salome, who was possibly the sister to Jesus’ mother, Mary. This would make her Jesus’ aunt and James and John His cousins. They have come to Jesus with a request that when He establishes His earthly kingdom, to put her 2 sons on His right and His left – which would be the 2 second most powerful positions under Jesus. Jesus’ reference to “the cup” He is about to drink from is not a cup of glory, but suffering. He is soon to be arrested, go through 6 illegal trials, be scourged, crucified and die. They are thinking of a dominant dictatorship; Jesus is thinking death. They do not understand this and proudly declare they are able to drink from the same cup, which they think is glory and positions on His left and right.
“Cup” was an Old Testament metaphor for suffering (see Ps. 75:8 and Isa. 51:17). Both James and John will suffer for being His disciples and eventually experience martyrdom. Yet, Jesus says He does not have the authority to determine who will sit on His right and left – only God the Father can make that decision. The Greek text seems to imply that God has not made any choice about any individual for such positions.
Well, this request caused the remaining 10 disciples to become “indignant.” The Greek New Testament word is [ἀγανακτέω; aganakteō]. This means “to become intensely angry through jealousy and envy.” They are not angry due to their own humility, but of their jealous self-serving desires. One of the tactics used throughout history to promote oneself is to use the influence of family and friends for positions of power.
Like the cultures of Greece and Rome, we live in an American culture of pride and self-esteem. Every culture that has gone down this path has self-destructed because for any culture to survive, it is dependent upon mutually supportive and harmonious relationships that seek the better good of all. When enough individuals go to only self-seeking, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing attitudes, then that society will collapse. Why? As self becomes stronger, then relationships become weaker. As self rights become the norm and supreme, then interpersonal bonds that hold a society together break down.
The idolatry of self-promotion, self-glory, self-fulfillment and self-esteem, like a virus, has infected our culture and even the church today. There are all kinds of books and seminars for Christians to go to today that promote this under the lie of spiritual formation, spiritual maturity and spiritual development. And unfortunately, this virus has found little resistance in the modern church. The modern church has gone from being God focused and servant focused to me focused and self-serving. There is a whole group of anti-Christian pastors out there who advocate that God’s plan for His people is health, wealth, success, and prosperity. Personal holiness has been replaced with personal happiness. Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:
“But a great part of the western church has become self-indulgent, self-satisfied, and self-reliant, claiming numerical and financial growth as evidence of spiritual blessing. It has replaced sacrifice with success, suffering with self-satisfaction, and godly obedience with fleshly indulgence” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Bible Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 230).
All of this comes from pride, which God hates (see Pr. 8:13). Why? Because it is what brought sin into the world in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve. Look at Proverbs 21:4, “Haughty eyes and a proud heart—the unplowed field of the wicked—produce sin” (NIV). Yes, the disciples had left everything to follow Jesus to be His disciples, and this “sacrifice” they made, created a prideful desire for reward and promotion. Like so many Christians today, they focused on what they could gain from following Jesus, not what they could give. Pastor and author John Stott writes about how this has permeated the modern church:
“A chorus of many voices is chanting in unison today that I must at all costs love myself. Today the first and greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt love thyself.” And the explanation for almost every interpersonal problem is thought to lie in someone’s low self-esteem. Sermons, articles, and books have pushed this idea into the Christian mind. It is a rare congregation, for example, that does not stumble over the “vermicular theology” of Isaac Watts’s “Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed”: “Would He devote that sacred head/For such a worm as I?” (Source: John Stott, The Danger of Self-Love, p. 13).
Unfortunately, many read this line “for such a worm as I” as “worm theology. They claim they are victims of such theology, not depraved sinners. A. W. Tozer writing on this said this:
“The cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a bright ornament upon the bosom of the self-assured and carnal Christian whose hands are indeed the hands of Abel, but whose voice is the voice of Cain. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemns; the new cross assures. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross, and before that cross it bows and toward that cross it points with carefully staged histrionics, but upon that cross it will not die and the reproach of that cross it stubbornly refuses to bear” (Source: A. W. Tozer, The Divine Conquest).
To follow Jesus means we are willing to suffer, sacrifice and serve for Him and His church. This is why we have to remind ourselves of what God says to us in 2 Timothy 2:11-12 and Romans 8:18. No sooner had Jesus mentioned for the third time His death, and this time, with greater details, His disciples were jumping for positions of power and prestige. We have a modern church that does not want the “meat” from God’s Word; they want what they consider as the “sweets” from God’s Word. We need the antidote of the Holy Spirit to kill this virus of prideful self-love in the church of self.
When I was in college taking a required psychology class, I had to read a book titled, I’m Okay, You’re Okay. I still have this book as a reminder of this: self-esteem is not our problem today; self-love is. God’s Word says none of us are okay. We are deviant, rebellious, self-serving, self-seeking individuals puffed up with pride making life about ourselves. We are not by nature humble servants seeking Christlike discipleship that leads to obedience to Jesus Christ. Tomorrow, we will look at this again.
Reflect: When it comes to your own personal discipleship, do you prefer sermons and Bible studies that make you feel good about yourself or that reveal your pride, sin and need to repent? Do you prefer sermons and Bible studies that are full of fluff or that actually challenge your faith to be more like Jesus Christ? Yes, we are children of the King of kings, but do you want a Christianity that makes you feel like a prince and a princess, or one that reminds you of what you are – a sinner in need of the grace of God? What has God said to you and where do you need to repent and change today?
Scripture To Meditate On: Psalm 10:4, “The wicked people are too proud. They do not look for, pursue, seek God; there is no room for God in their thoughts but themselves” (PAR).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, please forgive me when I make my relationship to You, my personal discipleship through You and my worship of You about me. Please forgive if and when I make it about me, about entertaining me, making me feel good about me and not You. I want to seek and build Your kingdom first, not mine. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly