Enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?
~Steve Brown
I often eat lunch with people and I love it. When someone has problems, victories, or just needs a shoulder to cry on, I will often meet them for lunch. Sharing a meal and sharing our lives with each other is a gift from God. There’s something about it that brings two people closer. I’ve noticed something about my lunches. I finish my lunch and the person I eat with often gets a “to go” box. Why? Because I listen to them talk instead of talking (and I ain’t lettin’ my food sit there). We have one thing we like to talk about above all others; ourselves.
Whether we are homeless or a CEO, we are the most important person on the planet (in our minds). We long to be known. We long to be heard. We long to matter.
That longing is meant to drive us to the source of Life.
We are thirsty in a way that is beyond our ability to handle. Until God became a man and experienced everything we do, He didn’t know this horrible, aching thirst.
As Jesus hung on the cross and said, “I thirst,” it was after the words, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken Me?” Only when God turned away, did Jesus feel the horror of humanity’s thirst. I don’t believe that thirst was only the dry tongue sticking to the roof of His mouth. I believe it was the thirst of the soul when the presence of God is not there. For Jesus to become a perfect sacrifice, He had to experience everything we do and overcome it. He was perfect when He arrived in the stable. He wasn’t a perfect sacrifice until He suffered.
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
Hebrews 5:8-9
Never doubt the reality of Jesus’ humanity.
God made sure His Son was immersed in what it means to be us. Jesus didn’t float on a cloud, above it all. He felt the things we feel. He had to depend on The Holy Spirit to energize His life and flow through Him. He didn’t start His ministry until His baptism and the descending of The Spirit on Him. Once that happened, God didn’t let Him go out and start being worshipped. He drove Him into the desert and put His human flesh through the ringer. He had Him fast for 40 days and let the devil tempt Him. How did he tempt Him? He offered Him a painless path to glory.
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Luke 4:5-7
The devil is smarter than any of us will ever be. He knows the Bible more than any of us ever will. He knows humanity on a level we can’t fathom. When God became a man, Satan knew where to go in his temptation. He didn’t bring a beautiful woman. He didn’t bring a bottle of alcohol or mind-altering drugs. He brought a painless shortcut to glory and power.
When Satan asked for worship. The Greek definition of what he wanted was this:
Worship (proskuneó)-properly, to kiss the ground when prostrating before a superior.
Only God is worthy of worship, praise, and adoration.
However, we long to be number one. Notice, Satan wanted to be number one as well. I don’t know about you, but that scares the hell out of me (excuse my French, but sometimes you can’t say things any other way).
Satan knew the humanity of Jesus was not exempt to being tempted by a shortcut to glory. The more I learn about being human, the more thankful I am that Jesus made it to the end without sin. As He hung on the cross, beaten and crucified by jealous and evil people, how in the world did He not turn against us and hate us?
When we complain about life being unfair and people treating us unfairly, it almost makes me physically sick. The one person who was ultimately treated unfairly was Jesus Christ. We are by nature children of wrath; deserving of the full wrath of God. Yet, He came. He humbled Himself to nothingness and died for ungrateful people like me and you.
The scriptures that arrested my soul today and took me down this path are John 12:42-43.
Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.
These were the leaders. They studied scripture their entire life. They were waiting on Messiah. He came into their midst. Many of them were convinced He was the One. Two things kept them from coming to Him.
- Fear of losing their high position in the society.
- They LOVED human praise MORE THAN praise from God.
Any of us who think we are not self-centered should let that scripture rip the blinders off our eyes. Praise, power, and position are more addictive than heroin. Satan went to that place with Jesus because he knew He was born of a woman. To be human (and He was fully human) means this temptation is our achilles heel.
Let’s be honest, we all want a shortcut to glory.
God wrote down the life of His Son so we could see what real glory looks like. We have the privilege of reading eyewitness accounts of God, living in the flesh, on planet earth.
God didn’t put Him in a big house or let Him wear the finest clothes. He didn’t get to have a family and settle down. He didn’t get to have sex. Yet, He lived a life of total fullness and satisfaction. How? He carried the Kingdom of God inside of Him.
Through the cross, God made a way to put that same Kingdom inside of us. We can truly know and worship the real God; up close and personal. When we do, we can relax and enjoy Him, our families, our jobs, people, and life in general. We can stop fighting to be number one. Instead, we can be filled to overflowing with the true Number One and let Him shine through us.
In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:16
If we live by the Spirit, the natural outcome will be praise; to Him. We will love that kind of praise.
Human kindness and sincere compliments are a gift to all of us. I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy those things. Enjoying something and having an addiction are two different things. We can enjoy a glass of wine. Drinking a whole bottle every night means we have a problem.
If human praise becomes our drug of choice, we will be forced to live a lonely life.
Why? We won’t be able to let people really know us. If praise is our goal, our lives need to be praiseworthy. Nobody’s life is praiseworthy. Unless we are living by the Spirit, we are hiding the truth of who we really are. Truth is, we are all fragile and jacked up. The freedom of admitting it is euphoric. The prison of trying to be praiseworthy is deadly.
Kurt Cobain is a perfect example of this truth. The last few years of his life he talked about how much he hated being famous. In his suicide note, he talked about feeling like a fake. He hated what he received because he said he didn’t feel like he deserved it. All the praise felt false.
He put into words the human condition. He lived for human praise and when he got it, he loathed it. He knew he didn’t deserve it.
Don’t fall for the false high of human praise. Just like drugs, the high is easy and cheap, but the crash is devastating. It will always leave us needing more and more until our lives become a soul-sucking vacuum. Neediness (and we all have it) is one of the most unattractive qualities of being human. It is the opposite of the God whose image we bear.
Scripture says the Pharisees loved human praise MORE THAN the praise from God. They did want God’s praise, but they wanted human praise more. We will too without begging God to put that monster to death in us.
If praise of man elates me and his
blame depresses me;
If I cannot rest under misunderstanding
Without defending myself;
If I love to be loved more than to
Love,
To be served more than to serve,
Then I know nothing of Calvary love.
~Amy Carmichael
