On many occasions, the gospels tell us how the disciples fought for the first positions. Selfishness and pride are not good advisers for man, that is why Jesus always acted wisely in the face of these things, the wisdom is the knowledge of the correct means to live. A truly intelligent man submits his decisions to wisdom, and not to what suits him at the moment, what is bread for today can be hunger for tomorrow.
For Christians, Jesus is a person full of wisdom, and the Lord was in the world with disciples who did not fully understand the spiritual realities, and it was logical that being attached to the matters of the flesh, they would ask favors with selfish and petty purposes.
And a situation of this type happened to Jesus when the mother of James and John, who were two of his disciples, asked him for their children to have the most important places in the Kingdom of Heaven together with his master, as related in the Gospel of Saint Matthew:
"Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
´What is it you want?´ he asked.
She said, ´Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.´
´You don't know what you are asking,´ Jesus said to them. ´Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?´
´We can,´ they answered.
Jesus said to them, ´You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.´" Matthew 20:20-23.
With this answer, our Lord Jesus explained to them the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, the empire of the divine perfections; the cup of Jesus was the destiny that he had to face to redeem humanity from their sins. The Kingdom of Heaven is about what we can give to make things better and that they tend to God's excellence, and not about what we can get from others; this is what Jesus tried to teach to his disciples, because also in this spiritual Kingdom, in the end, the first will be the last and the last will be the first.
For more information visit my profile follow the link and download for free my ebook.