The Cure for Our Disease

There’s a cure for our disease! Hooray! “Disease? What disease?”, you must be wondering. “I’m healthy, I’m fit, and I feel great!” Yes, and here’s hoping you are all three and more!  But we are ALL born with this common disease.

It’s the Look! I’m Here, I’m Special Syndrome. Sometimes known as the Hey! What About Me? I’m Important Disorder. Joe Stowell calls it ‘Self-promotionitis.’ This state of mind is not really seen by the world as a disease. For most of us it’s seen as a plus, a definite advantage, the only way to survive in our world today. By our very nature we strive to be valued, to be recognized, to find worth, to be great. Being significant and validated is important to all of us. So what’s wrong with that? Well…it depends.

It all depends on the root of where are longing for greatness resides.

It depends on what our striving for greatness does to us and to other people.

How can we seek greatness without negative consequences to another person, or to ourselves? To be first you need to be last.

That’s very hard teaching in our world filled with self needs. It’s unheard of in the midst of our competitive state of mind. It’s another paradox thing. This hunger for greatness is a born-in-us struggle. Where it leads us, and how we view it, makes all the difference in the world. Everyone has the ‘trait’ in them.  There’s a saying that confronts this trait:  “there’s no smaller package in the world than that of a person all wrapped up in himself or herself.”

Take a look at the guys who followed Jesus around.

James and John were two brothers (with a very pushy mom) and very high expectations of their future. They were arguing about who was going to be the right-hand man in the new Kingdom. The Hand of the King so to speak. Their mother had also asked Jesus privately if her sons could have this special status. This wasn’t the first time that his men got into disagreements about their importance in the group. Jesus’ response was consistent. Serve others, not yourselves. If you want to be first, choose to be the one who is last.

And this argument occurred again, even on the last day his friends are with him at dinner, before he was arrested.  A group of them were arguing about who among them was greatest. Our leader and teacher decided they needed an object lesson. He got up from his meal, quietly took a towel and a basin of water, got to his knees and washed his disciples’ feet—an act always done by a person of lower status or rank. Our King, their Teacher, became their servant.

He became our Servant on Good Friday,

and our King 3 days later.

God built us for greatness. Isn’t that great news? He longs for us to find significance as we live out our lives. He doesn’t want us to beat up on ourselves and not feel worthy!!! The beauty of Jesus’ teaching about greatness is that it doesn’t eliminate our hunger for self-worth. His words tell us how to redirect this need in the way that brings great, great satisfaction.  So why do so many, many people feel worthless?

God’s design for us to find worth is destroyed by our human selfishness.

Our personal pride gets in the way of God’s heart for us.

“What Jesus does here is very profound. He recognizes in his disciples’ quest for greatness a good thing that has become ugly and distorted by sin…He describes a pathway on which the pursuit of greatness will be radically transformed into something beautiful…But what has happened to this God-given longing for greatness?  It has been corrupted by sin in two ways:

•  it has been corrupted into a longing not to be great, but to be known as great;

•  it has been corrupted into a longing not to be great, but to be greater than someone else.

He radically transforms the quest for greatness…True greatness is not positioning yourself so that others praise you, but true greatness is putting yourself in a position to serve everyone.” John Piper

That’s the Cure!!

In my next posting I’ll share how this redirection, The Cure, changed my own life. I’ll share stories of those who have found greatness through giving. Feel free to share your story too.

(Dr. Ray Stedman) “This is the secret principle by which we achieve glory, which is something we all long for. We all want people to think highly of us. This is what Jesus is talking about. The secret of attaining glory is to give yourself up, to lose yourself. We struggle with this. The key is in the phrase ‘as I have loved you’. That is the secret. Our love must originate from His love for us. We are to draw upon His loving acceptance of us in order to reach out in loving acceptance to others near us, whether they are lovely or not.“

He takes our thirst for greatness and quenches it!

“The true sign of the Spirit is that you become a blessing to somebody else.  Someone else is helped through you.  Your concern is to reach out to someone else in need and help him.

When that happens you will find that your own thirst has been slaked; you will find a deep satisfaction of heart…”If any one thirst, let him come unto me, and keep on drinking.” As you listen to Jesus… lean on his grace…enjoy his love…you will find that He will change you.

One of the signs of that change, as certain as tomorrows sunrise, is that you will begin to think of somebody other than yourself. You will reach out to the hurting around you, and when you do that your own heart will be satisfied. Meaning, significance, power and companionship will come into your life. That is the promise of Jesus.” For Those Who Thirst