The legacy of humility

"We may convince ourselves we're about God's work, so we do everything we can to build that empire, forgetting the servant nature of Jesus."  - Mary DeMuth

      I spent a special weekend in November celebrating the 95th birthday of my grandfather. The party included an impressive guest list of over 900 people and included in that list were many well known names. Upon planning the party however my sweet grandfather would repeatedly proclaim "no one is going to have any interest in coming to my birthday". And he means it. 

    My grandfather has been the advisor to many presidents, He has repeatedly been on Gallup's list of most admired men and women. He has appeared on the list 55 times. He has graced the cover of Time and played host to world leaders and even pop culture icons. He has been given the congressional medal of honor and even been knighted.  To the rest of the world - he's a big deal. To him- He is a 95 year old man who loves Jesus. 

      My grandfather isn't interested in his twitter followers. His value is not based on who knows his name and how many books he sells. This used to be a problem we saw in the world but the phenomenon has leaked into the christian world. The problem of the christian celebrity.

      Ironically  while Jesus walked the earth, He had plenty of opportunities to become known, "to leverage His influence for the kingdom"* And yet, He didn't. He repeatedly told the people to keep his miracles quiet. Jesus gave us no indication that He would tweet about feeding the five thousand. In fact following that miracle he retreated to be by himself.

    I have watched, arguably this decades most influential evangelist stop to thank the bus boy for cleaning his table. I have watched him return the rented Lincoln town car for a less expensive Taurus. I have seen his 95 year old eyes light up when I shared that an unknown single mother gave her life to Christ and with all his strength loudly proclaim "PRAISE THE LORD". 

   Jesus teaches that the poor in spirit, the meek and the humble will be blessed. I am just suggesting that as a christian culture we have lost sight of the basics. We have excused "influencing the kingdom" to promote what we are doing. 

  I suggest we value fame—we call it “influence”—too much. I suggest we value size and scale too much. *

Where did we miss it? When did it become acceptable to promote ourselves and others while "claiming" we are promoting the kingdom. Whose kingdom is it we are promoting? 

  Personally I have been given a legacy of humility. A tangible, hand holding example of what it looks like to humbly serve the Lord in my grandfather. But we all have that example and legacy in Jesus Christ. I want to get back to admiring Jesus over those doing His work. And stop defining His work in scales and numbers and status' and feeds. I want to get back to becoming and admiring the 

" least of these".

Thank you daddy bill for being my "Jesus with skin on."

 "Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory." Psalm 115:1

 * G Pakiem