It's not all about you

"For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever i speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."

John 12:49-50

I remember one of the first staff meetings we had when I got back to HOPE from Texas. 

It was such a glorious relief to be back home and I was just so happy to be with my people again.

People that love and care for each other and long to know the Lord's heart in an intimate way.

Anyway, right around the time I was getting back, a small glimpse of some pretty awesome revival was breaking out. It was short lived, but amazing and refreshing, not to mention, only the beginning.

That Tuesday morning, we were sitting there talking about how to handle this move of God and how we should steward it well as leaders.

I remember one of my friends spoke up and I'll use his name because I know he won't care.

He said something like, "I just feel like this is gonna be different... It won't be like 'wow look what Jacob Crochet did in 2014' it will be 'wow, look what Jesus did in 2014.'"

Now that really isn't word-for-word because it was too long ago for me to remember it exactly, but that's definitely the part that stuck with me.

How often it goes through my mind, man it'll be cool when people look back and see what I did in that whole movement.

Really it has nothing to do with me.

We're going into a movement that requires a nameless and faceless people group.

A generation that doesn't look for man's praises (not that any of the other great revivalists were after that, this is just a completely different time in the earth.)

We can't be after big labels or after making our name great.

It literally has to be completely about Jesus. The glory is His in everything that happens.

I mean even Jesus didn't keep the glory for Himself when He spoke. Hence, the verse from John I put at the very beginning.

Jesus Himself didn't take the glory, He gave it all back to God which, in reality, was giving it to Himself........Weird, but awesome.

Still, He was humble and wise enough to keep His mouth shut when He knew fleshy words were gonna spill out.

Remember, Jesus was a human and had the exact same temptations that we have today.

I think sometimes people forget that.

Yes, He was perfect and never failed, but He absolutely went through every temptation that we do.

We just give in instead of going to the Father and resisting like Jesus did.

How do we become nameless and faceless like we're supposed to be?

We be like Jesus.

Which really is the answer to every question, but in this situation it is the ONLY answer.

Jesus wasn't about making Himself seem super awesome.
He wasn't like hey guys look how freakishly great I am at raising people from the dead.

Hey isn't it cool that I  know everything about people before they even tell me, cause well you know, I created them.

Isn't it neat that I was born from a virgin?

Yep, Jesus, that's the name, don't forget it!

He really wasn't about that.

He says He ONLY does what the Father does.

Meaning He doesn't do anything on His own.

Nor does He take all the credit for it.

He recognizes He's the Messiah and recognizes Himself as the King of Kings and knows who He is, but He still totally gave it all back to the Father. 

There's that fine like between being confident in who you are and being prideful and working for a title.

Lets just say, Jesus was a complete pro at keeping Himself from wavering on that fine line.

In fact, Jesus even built up other people.

He gave great titles to some pretty not so great people.

Thieves and one's He knew would betray His trust, prostitutes.

He built a platform under them just like He does for us.

He would tell them to take care of the problems sometimes because really He just wanted them to know they could do it.

That's a good servant, not your normal lady hostess running around cooking and cleaning everything. We get that whole "servant" thing really confused with busy-bodies.

Jesus was the perfect servant! Last time I checked, He was falling asleep on a ship in the middle of a storm, not freaking out trying to fix it, clean it, cook it all the time. The Guy knew how to rest!

All this to say...

Let's take our nameless faceless call seriously and glorify the Father.

It's really not about you!

What a relief.

The glory that we get from men is nothing like the rewards we'll receive from Jesus Christ Himself in the end.

Things that nobody sees you do...

People may not even know your name like you think they should.

But, guess what?

Jesus does, and He thinks what you do is completely amazing and will recognize it in front of everyone at the end of this life!

So for now, it's not for our glory at all.

He's the only one who deserves glory.

He is worthy!