King For A Day, Fool For Eternity

The Spirit laid this on my heart this weekend at Church. In my immaturity and arrogance I have misunderstood my gifts as making me special or essential. Not only to myself but to my family and the body of Christ. As I am learning humility I am beginning to realize that the gifts I have been given make me useful and effective for the Kingdom.

1 Samuel 2:3 ~ "Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

Romans 12:3 ~ "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."

Said another way, as I have heard it said in the past...

When you try to become king for a day which is usually the duration of true control over situation, most end up becoming fools for a life time. In an effort to exert even small meaningful control over small meaningless elements of our lives, we exert superfluous amounts of energy to acheive little or nothing. Whats worse is we strive in vain chasing the wind only to make fools of ourselves. Success or importance can only be gauged agaisnt the measure set forth by God. Everything else, as Solomon said, is vanity.

Jeremiah 17:11 ~ ""As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, So is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him, And in the end he will be a fool."

If you are important to God, you are useful to all. If you are arrogant, you are useless except as a bad example. God of course can change you as He has me. How hard the change is, is in direct correlation to the height of your arrogance and where God wants you in humility. Everyone is gifted...it is a matter of how the gifts are used. Are they used in selfishness or in service to others?

Philippians 2:5-8 ~ “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-even death on a cross.

I guess it is no small irony that fools are always so sure of themselves while the wise are always so plagued with doubt. I should probably revise my original statement. It isn't that you become king for a day and a fool for a lifetime. It is more like being a king in your own mind for a day in exchange for being a fool for eternity. Why? 

By putting yourself first you are attempting to take your Father's seat at the throne. When you make yourself king before giving credence and reverence to God, it puts you in direct violation of...

Exodus 20:3-6 ~ “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Leviticus 19:4 ~ “Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the Lord your God.”

Jonah 2:8 ~ “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.”

1 Corinthians 10:14 ~ “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.”

1 John 5:21 ~ “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

If you are in violation of these commandments or violating these principles on a regular basis you might want to take a long hard look at your relationship with God and make sure its as solid as you think it is...because it might not be what you think. Are you willing to risk your eternal crown for a self-bestowed imaginary crown only existent in you own imagination? Your greatness here may only be your imagination as opposed to the rock solid guarantee of the very real salvation from the Lord in the Kingdom.