Mark 9:35

Plain English Version

Then Jesus sat down to teach them, and he called to his 12 special workers to come close to him, and he said, “If any one of you wants to be the leader, you have to think to yourself, ‘I’m not important at all.’ And you have to be a worker for everyone else.”

Cross References

Mark 9:36

There was a young kid in that house, and Jesus picked him up and said, “Look at this little kid. If you follow me, and if you are friendly to little kids like this one, and if you help them, well, really you are friendly to me too. And if you are friendly to me, well, really you are friendly to my father in heaven too. He is the one that sent me here.”

Luke 18:14

Jesus said, “I’m telling you now, God listened to that bad man because he was sorry for the bad things he did, so God says that he is all right, and he will not punish that man. But God doesn’t say that about the other man that already reckoned he was good. You see, if you try to make yourself important, God will make you like nothing. But if you make yourself like nothing, God will make you important.” (We have not yet translated 18:15-43. You can read those stories and messages in Mark 10:13-34, 46-52.)

James 4:6

And remember that God is really good to us. His book says this too, “God is against people that think they are great, but he is good to people that know they are not great.”