Jesus on the cusp of His deliverance into the hands of evil men to be crucified is approached by the mother of two of His disciples. She makes a strange request of the man who has only demonstrated servant leadership. She wants her sons to sit on His right and His left. In less than a month Jesus will have two thieves next to Him, not two disciples.

As I preach through any gospel book I am confronted with a very disquieting order of events in life, the cross comes before the crown. Jesus is the King of the universe both seen and unseen. He demonstrated for us that death precedes exaltation. The necessity of death to self is the divine order for all humanity. Unless a person takes up their cross, they cannot be Christ’s disciple.

So often we want the favored place at the banquet. Jesus calls us to be slaves not masters. His desire is for our lives to be full, and that only happens when we die to self and live to Him. The good news is that there is life. The bad news is that it requires death.

Both James and John experienced the life of Jesus, and that life in Jesus was made possible by their death to self. Their lives were spent in service to Jesus after His death, burial, resurrection and ascension. Then they did not care about their position in the kingdom. They only cared about the King.

Jesus captures self-absorbed people and transforms their desires by walking through life with them. At the end of their days they only care about King Jesus and not their position in His kingdom. They just want the King.