Last to First and First to Last

   It happens in team sports. A team is riding high in first place in the standings and then all of a sudden the bottom drops out and they fall to last place before the season ends. Then there is the opposite scenario where the cellar dwellers rise through the ranks to reach the top spot.

   Not only in team sports but also in individual competitions, a player will be on top and then fall mightily, or go the other way from way down to the top. I think of John Peterson, who had no ranking on any of the professional golf tours and was ranked, I believe, 831st in the world, spending most of the last two days of the U.S. Open on the leaderboard, and ended up tied for 4th place.

   At the end of today's reading in Matthew 19:30 it reads:

   "But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (ESV)

   Either consciously or unconsciously, we tend to rank people into hierarchies according to the way we view their accomplishments and standing. We see leaders in government, education, society and even the church that we rate in this way. We may even try to rank ourselves in accordance to how we feel we stand relative to those folk.

   But God says: "My ways are not your ways."

   I believe that  when I die and go to Heaven, I will be surprised first of all by those whom God honors whose names are not known to anyone outside maybe their family and friends. Well-known Christian personalities will be looking up to these unknowns who have sought no fame, but have been faithful in their service for Him.

   Now this is not a treatise on Heaven, or rewards there, but it is a word spoken to me first of all, that faithfulness, where God shows the path, leads to an honored Christian life, maybe not here on earth, but later on. It is also a word on self-promotion or seeking the leadership roles for the wrong reasons. Even good things done in these latter situations can be burned up like hay and stubble.

   God judges the heart, and that can be a true but scary thing.

   The First, and those who think they deserve to be, will be last, and..

   The Last, and those who serve in Christian humility, will be first...

   Too often I have gotten it wrong.