Luke 17:7-19 Niv

What is true greatness?

In the kingdom of this world, the great man is the one who has risen to a place of wealth and power. He has a retinue of aides and assistants, conditioned to follow his orders. He is accorded V.I.P. treatment and receives special favors wherever he goes. People regard him with respect and awe because of his rank. He never has to stoop to anything menial; there are always others to do that for him.

But in the Kingdom of our Lord, things are quite different....

John 9:1-11

The narrative of the opening of this blind man's eyes is given only in John's gospel. It is recorded with much minuteness, not merely because of the greatness of the miracle - but also because it was a sign of the spiritual enlightening which Jesus came to give to men. The cure seems to have been performed without request, either from the blind man himself or from any...

Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. § I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone … not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a...

Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God. § One of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;...

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. § What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? § By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.By the...

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. § The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. § You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing;  but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have...

This poor widow has put in more than all. § Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. § If there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. § If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be...