At your funeral, you will not be known for your presence on a stage, but for little acts of seemingly unnoticed kindnesses. Dare to be small, friends. Dare to love when no ones looking. Forget the platform. Forget the acclaim. Celebrity is a mirage, and a dangerous one at that. It impales your Christianity, saps you of your verve for Jesus, and makes you think Youre big when really only God is. God looks at the heart, not the stature, not the splash, not the numbers, not the likes. He is not impressed with social media. He is the One who said the first in line will be last, the noticed, unnoticed, the puffed up brought low, the one who pushes for the best seat placed squarely in the lowest seat. Your life is not measured by all the outward decorations, all the accolades, all the fans, all the praise. It is measured in the prayer closet, the last place, the quiet acts of love unseen, the character youve painstakingly built in the background. God sees THERE. So please remember that fame is weird, that it is actually a detriment to your life with Jesus. I preach this to myself, admitting that I have allowed myself to be caught up in the euphoria of it. But most of what Ive seen of fame and acclaim and worldly Christian celebrity success is corruption and devastation and pride. The Scripture is clear. Pride precedes destruction. Humility ushers in honor. Whether youre on a stage or in the audience, we all can give into pride, thinking we are above reproach, that we are little gods, that we know everything and everyone else knows nothing. We are fooling ourselves if we think life is simply and merely about our comfort. Bonhoeffer said, When Christ bids a man, he bids him come and die. Not so glam. Not so fun. Not so famous. It is costly, this walk of faith. It is often outside the scope of limelight. It is more concerned for Gods reputation and our integrity than it is for polishing our halos or appearing to have a good reputation. In fact, true repentance means not caring a lick of how well appear before others, or even evaluating whether our repentance looks right. No, we simply bow before a holy God, our reputations held in His sovereign hands. To die to ourselves is painful. I wish I could say I always do it. But Im clay-footed and dull of heart. I chase the shiny, the promise of comfort, the woo of ease. I falsely believe that fame equals love, forgetting that it is often the very thing that impoverishes my soul. I preach this crazy facebook message to myself. I pray today that God would take these words as they are meant: as an offering. As my sabbatical winds down, I want to be on my knees more, dirtying myself in the affairs of others (for good, for love), and truly-truly-truly letting God have my worries. He is the Author and Perfecter of this journey I walk as an author and speaker. He has the final say. May it be that I once again bow my heart before the only throne that matters. Amen.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 14:52:30 +0000
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