Affirm
If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
Psalm 130:4
TEXT
Mark 9:33-41
They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly be rewarded.” (TNIV)
READ
“The fact is that I have never seen anyone find spiritual power who did not seek something deeper. Spiritual power is a by-product of the Spirit in the life, making that life Christlike. To seek for spiritual power is very liable to send one off on those tangents of self-glorification and self-assertion that lead straight away from the Christian ideal.
To seek for the Spirit to be made Christlike sends one to a self-surrender that leads straight to the heart of the gospel—a cross. Christ’s power lies in a cross… Our power lies in that same cross. Only those who know how to take up the cross for the world know how to move that world.”
-E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of Every Road
Declare
“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:9