Jonathan Swift Quotes

I think of Pope Gregory the Great. He wanted the cloister. He wanted to pray and study, and yet he was thrust into this administrative job, and he submitted to that. And in that submission, he became a great leader. You could say that the only person who is safe to lead is the person who is free to submit.

Through the humbling dispensations of Divine Providence, men are sometimes fitted for his service.

One of the most amazing things ever said on this earth is Jesus's statement: "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Nobody has one chance in a billion of being thought really great after a century has passed except those who have been the servants of all. That strange realist from Bethlehem knew that.

If you want to be important-wonderful. If you want to be recognized-wonderful. If you want to be great-wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.

True greatness is devoting all my energy to becoming a servant and not getting upset when I am treated like one.

I think we should all be servants. To be really great in God's eyes is to be least among each other and serve each other.

My first act as president is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads: Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to head and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: 'Use power to help people." For we know that we are given power, not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it Lord, Amen.

The world's idea of greatness is to rule, but Christian greatness consists in serving.

He who is the servant of all is their true master. He never becomes a leader in whose love there is a consideration of high or low. He whose love knows no end and never stops to consider high or low has the whole world lying at his feet.

Every time we deny ourselves in order to serve someone else, we grow in Christ.

If we practice love of neighbor with great perfection, we will have done everything.

I want to be aware of how I treat others, not thinking too highly of myself to be a servant in a culture which tries to place me on a throne that only God should sit.

Shall ignorance of good and ill Dare to direct the eternal will? Seek virtue, and of that possest, To Providence resign the rest.

To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble.

Jesus specialized in menial tasks that everyone else tried to avoid: washing feet, helping children, fixing breakfast, and serving lepers. Nothing was beneath him, because he came to serve.

I can usually sense that a leading is from the Holy Spirit when it calls me to humble myself, serve somebody, encourage somebody or give something away. Very rarely will the evil one lead us to do those kinds of things.

The Christian knows to serve the weak not because they deserve it but because God extended his love to us when we deserved the opposite. Christ came down from heaven, and whenever his disciples entertained dreams of prestige and power he reminded them that the greatest is the one who serves. The ladder of power reaches up, the ladder of grace reaches down.

The man or woman who is wholly or joyously surrendered to Christ can't make a wrong choice/any choice will be the right one.

The Lord ate from a common bowl, and asked the disciples to sit on the grass. He washed their feet, with a towel wrapped around His waist - He, who is the Lord of the universe!

..the true test of spirituality [is] in the freedom to live among people compassionately....Prayer frees us to be controlled by God.

And it is so simple... The one thing is - love thy neighbor as thyself - that is the one thing. That is all, nothing else is needed. You will instantly find how to live.

The first step to leadership is servanthood.

The great man is to be the servant of mankind, not they of him.

We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor.

The life of Jesus is a life for others. It is a life of service.