1501) Do you ever wish to be in charge of your life? Well, we are, to a certain extent, but what I’m asking is, have you ever wanted to call all the shots in your life? If we’re honest, all of us would say yes.

This is the motivation behind a woman’s request of Jesus in Matthew 20:20-23 to allow her sons to sit in places of high honor in the next life, specifically to the right and left of him on his throne. Jesus’ answer is somber because he asks if they are willing to do what he is going to be doing that has placed him on this throne in the first place and that is allowing man to take him, torture him and murder him on the cross.

The hard fact is, whenever we want to run our own lives, rather than in the way God has laid out for us in the Bible, we are living in the same spirit Lucifer (later known as Satan) had when he said he wanted to be like God. Isaiah 14:14

Wanting to model our lives after Jesus is one thing. Wanting to be equal with him is a request made out of a lack of understanding of what it will cost.