Meditate with me on this fantastic passage of Scripture in Mark 10.  Jesus is talking to the disciples and begins telling them about his death and resurrection:

“‘We are going up to Jerusalem,'” he said, “‘and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him.  Three days later he will rise.'”

Wow!  Talk about powerful stuff.  Jesus is telling his disciples about the brutal death he is going to endure and about his miraculous resurrection that is to come.  A casual Bible reader is well aware that the disciples never fully grasp the idea that Jesus is going to rise from the dead.  They are clearly taken by surprise when he actually is resurrected.

In this passage, however, what struck me as particularly amusing is the request from the Zebedee brothers that follows.

“Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask.'”

Seriously?!  That’s your next question?!  Jesus says he is going to die a terrible, miserable, painful death and then be RAISED FROM THE DEAD and all you can ask is “what’s in it for me?”

Before I am too harsh on the disciples I better look at my own life.  How often do I try to make Jesus my genie.  Instead of pondering how I can sacrifice myself for the glorious cause of Christ, I too often spend my time asking Jesus for physical comforts.  Rather than making salvation all about the glory and power of God, I try to focus it all about.  After all, it is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Stop and think about what Christ has done.  Focus on how to respond to the beauty of the gospel.  Do not follow Jesus merely for temporal blessings.  Rather, follow Jesus because of who He is and what He has done by dying and being raised to life.