Read Mark 10:35-40- This drama continues to play out among the twelve, and it has continuing to play out among believers today all because we fail to fully believe that we are accepted into a new family and as such we have individual assignments. This passage is about James and John. There were three among the twelve who got to go places no one else did. These brothers were asking Jesus for superior positions above their peers. Have we ever been in a place where we are asking for something that God intended for someone else? Jesus did not tell them no. Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask? Are you able to drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” Jesus’ key question was, ‘Are you willing to pay the price that will prepare you for that?’ That was the question. They answered a wholehearted yes and no doubt they regretted it once or twice. Jesus made it possible for each of us to be accepted. He also when He ascended on high gave gifts to men. Each of us must integrate into ourselves that we are accepted, we have a gifting and a calling, and it starts by serving…serving…serving! God’s path does not change!
- Ask that the Lord will reveal those actions, characteristics and lifestyle that have created holes in you as a vessel and so you are unable to retain a lifestyle that pleases God even
though you are exposed to His life-giving Spirit and Word. (Jeremiah 2:13, Psalm 36:9).
- Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit first upon your life, then upon the church so there will be heightened spiritual communion and fruitfulness on earth as it happened at Pentecost. (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:1-4).
- Pray that the Holy Spirit will fill every believer with a strong desire to take volumes of God\’s word – reading, listening, studying meditating, confessing, memorizing, proclaiming and sharing it. The water of the word will purify and cleanse whoever receives it. (Col 3:16; Eph 5:26).