THE DANGER OF STATUS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

Galatians 6:3 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I’ve had the opportunity to climb the ladder of success in life on more than one occasion.

It started in high school when I was a young, budding trumpet player who burst on the scene of the senior high band as a freshman and was placed second seat, first trumpet. The person with the honor of the first seat was a senior who would go on to be a great trumpet player in the Marine Corps band. Of course, he graduated my first year in senior high band and I would move up to assume the first seat for my final three years of high school. Music dominated my life at that time and I was voted as Most Musical and Talented in my senior class.

I then went into the United States Navy, not as a musician but an electronics technician and served for twenty eight and a half years. I went from a mere Seaman Recruit, the lowest rank in the Navy, to a Command Master Chief, the highest honor of achievement on the enlisted side. Less than one percent of the people serving in the Navy will get the privilege to serve at that high level. It was a great journey, punctuated by a lot of hard work and a constant striving for betterment.

There have been other achievements I could highlight but you get the point. I am no stranger to reaching levels of importance but here’s the thing I have to always remember.

All these things are worldly gains. In the big picture of life, they really don’t matter and, in fact, they can actually lead me to living in a way that is sinful, a way of life where I think I am more important than I am, a way of life where I choose to glorify and worship myself instead of my Lord.

Indeed, there is a danger in status. It can cause us to see ourselves as superior to others, even looking down on others because they are lesser achieved or seeing ourselves as too important to lend a hand to those less fortunate. This is the caution found in today’s verse as we continue to see the Apostle Paul offering guidance to the Christians in Galatia. He writes:

If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

Paul could have said this a different way.

“Don’t think of yourself as being better than someone else.”

This is how the people of the world behave but it is counter to how Jesus lived. Our Savior could have seen Himself as superior to all mankind and therefore chosen to look down on everyone. After all, He was the very Son of God, the one and only Son of the Maker and Master of all creation. He was perfect in every way and no one else was like that for sure.

But Jesus didn’t carry Himself as if He was above God’s people. Rather, He walked among them, as human as they were. Rather than think He was more important, Jesus integrated with all people, even people who had been shunned or marginalized by society. Ultimately, He willingly allowed Himself to be brutally punished and put to death on a cross, bearing the sins of all people so they might find atonement through Him and be saved from eternal torment and damnation.

As we consider the way we related to one another, we need to turn to Jesus and do what He did. We need to see everyone as a person of value, a person worth caring for and saving, if necessary.

This was the message Paul wanted the Galatian believers to receive. It’s the same message God wants you and me to receive today.

For through Christ, we can always avoid the danger of status.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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