One of the many reasons I believe the Bible is the fact Jesus says over and over again, “Don’t tell anyone what I just did.” In other words, “I Am” was saying don’t tell anyone how great I am.
He raised a little girl from the dead.
And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Mark 5:43
He healed a deaf man.
And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
Mark 7:36
He opened the eyes of two blind men.
Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about it.”
Matthew 9:29-30
Jesus had one goal while He was on this earth, to do the will of Him who sent Him.
He was the greatest human ever born and yet made Himself nothing.
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Philippians 2:5-7
“The King of Glory did not grab His position and demand respect, but emptied Himself and took the form of a servant.”
I am so humbled as I read this passage. The King of Glory did not grab His position and demand respect, but emptied Himself and took the form of a servant. If we humans were really full of The Holy Spirit, how would that look? Would we be stepping all over people and strutting around like the little idiots we are, or would we look more like Jesus?
When I read He was trying to get away from crowds and the crowds were waiting for Him wherever He went, I want to be like Him deep inside my soul.
“He had compassion on them and healed their sick.”
Matthew 14:14
He had just heard that His cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded and he was trying to go somewhere and be alone, but the crowd found Him. He wasn’t angry, He was full of compassion.
com·pas·sion
Definition: sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others
He was in pain and wanted to be alone, but His compassion for others trumped His concern for Himself.
Can you believe this is the God of the universe? This should provoke shock and awe in each one of our hearts. These people didn’t care about Jesus and His pain or His need to be alone. They cared about their needs and they sucked the life out of Him. How did He respond… with sympathetic pity and concern for their suffering.
The Bible tells us the truth about who our God is. In the Old Testament we see Him from afar, in the New Testament we see Him in human form. We hear Him speak and see His everyday life. We see I AM being who He is. He was the one human who could do no other. He didn’t have a fake bone in His body. There was no hypocrisy in Him. He called a spade a spade as in, “You hypocrites, brood of vipers, your father is the devil,” kind of way.
We also hear Him say, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more,” to the one caught in the act of adultery. The “act.” I wonder if she was half naked or fully naked as they dragged her before Him. Our God says to someone who was caught red-handed having sex with someone other than their husband… “no condemnation.”
“If we were more like our Jesus, the world would be beating down our door also.”
Are we in awe enough of our God? Do we take the time deserved of these truths to meditate on them and beg our Father to do this to our stony, self-exalting hearts? I would say the answer to those questions is no, we don’t. If we were more like our Jesus, the world would be beating down our door also.
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
John 6:38
“He lived the way every human was created to live, empty yet full. Empty of self, full of The Holy Spirit.”
That scripture tells us the reason Jesus emptied Himself and took the form of a servant. He was a human and He had a will. He emptied Himself and served His Father perfectly. He didn’t let His humanity get in the way at all. He was constantly connected to the source of life. He lived the way every human was created to live, empty yet full.
Empty of self, full of The Holy Spirit.
“We spend time doing what fuels us. If God is our fuel, we will crave time with Him… alone.”
If we believed that, we would strive to forget about ourselves and seek His kingdom and His righteousness and not build kingdoms down here. We would be so full of Him that we would totally forget ourselves. We would be great because we are connected to the great One. However, we wouldn’t want accolades or attention. We would crave time with Him above all others. Why would we crave time alone with Him? Because He is our source. We spend time doing what fuels us. If God is our fuel, we will crave time with Him… alone.
Jesus would go without sleep to be with His Father all night. He voluntarily went to mountains alone to enjoy the one Person He craved. What a lesson for us.
If we lived the way He did, we would be full of compassion for the needy humans all around us. We would probably be doing many of the miracles Jesus did, and we would say, “Shhhhh, don’t tell anybody what I just did for you.” And we would mean it.
Philippians says we can have the same mind as Christ Jesus. Why do we not have that same mind? We never will until we soak in His Presence and in His Word.
“For the eyes of the LORD roam throughout the earth to show himself strong for THOSE who are wholeheartedly devoted to him.”
2 Chronicles 16:9 (CSB)
His eyes are fiercely looking over this entire earth for any one of us to give Him our whole heart. The Hebrew word for wholehearted is just what we would think. It means complete.
I spoke with someone who was struggling desperately recently. As I talked to him, I said, “Do you really want God?” He said, “No, but I want to want Him.”
I told him that was a great place to start. He is a born again believer who has lost his fire, yet there is still a tiny ember that burns. I took that analogy and we walked through what to do with that flickering ember.
I asked him how he would get an ember going again with a campfire. Would he load it up with heavy pieces of wood and expect a huge fire soon? He said no, he would have to gently blow on it and put little pieces of fuel near it to help it come back to life.
I then asked him this question. “What could happen if you brought that little ember back to life, eventually put huge pieces of wood on it, and continued to feed it? He said it could burn a whole forest down.
“If we have lost our fire for God and He is not consuming us, we have to take that truth to God and say, “I don’t want You, but I want to want You.””
I said, “That’s us.” If we have lost our fire for God and He is not consuming us, we have to take that truth to God and say, “I don’t want You, but I want to want You.”
That was where I started many years ago. I got on my knees in my living room with a friend who was also tired of pretending. I said to the God of heaven, “I don’t love You, I am only afraid of You. But I want to love You. Help me!
“No one arrives this side of heaven, but God will show Himself strong for any of THOSE who will start to seek Him.”
That prayer started me on a journey of honesty and transparency. I have stumbled more times than I would like to talk about, but part of this walk is talking about our failures and fears. They are many but so are the victories. No one arrives this side of heaven, but God will show Himself strong for any of THOSE who will start to seek Him.
When God gets a few of THOSE people, He will show the world who He is. I love that God used a generic term like THOSE instead of an exclusive term like “special.”
He wants to put His strength and greatness in every single one of us. We just have to come to Him and be honest, right where we are. He can take a tiny ember and with our cooperation, turn us into a blazing fire.
Jesus didn’t have to beg or manipulate people to come to Him. He lived in a jar of clay just like us. Miracles were a part of His life but did not define Him. Otherwise, He would have made sure word spread about all He was doing. He had one goal; to do the will of His Father. A single focus satisfied and consumed Him. Therefore, He could say something as shocking as, “Don’t tell anyone what I just did.” No human would have ever done that. What a glimpse into the heart of who God is.
