5 Tips to Help You Become Great

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your
servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave –
just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to
serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Matthew 20:26-28

The above verses deliver a message that I feel is very foreign to our society. I can’t help but feel like we’ve missed God’s goal of greatness. Greatness to us, has become something totally different from what God views it as. To us, greatness is measured more by someone’s popularity, money, career, or even their possessions.

The verses above tell exactly what is needed to help you become great. It says that those things (popularity, money, careers) are apparently the exact opposite of what God considers great. I feel like we tend to focus too much on the brevity of our worldly successes. Our flesh fights our “short” life-span and we seek out ways to make ourselves look and feel good.

The world tells us that this life is short and we have to accomplish certain things in life for our lives to have any kind of meaning, but God tells us that true success and joy in life come from loving and knowing Him as our Lord and Savior.

We Have Been Fed the Wrong View of Greatness

It makes sense to me that the world would have the complete opposite view of greatness from God. The Bible tells us that satan is the prince of this world and one of his main goals is to lie to us and get us believing the things of God aren’t true.

In all honesty, the dish satan serves up is a pretty good looking dish. Who doesn’t want to have money, power, and possessions? I’m not saying having those things has to be a bad thing…but I am saying that I feel the majority of the world has a skewed view of the importance of having those types of things.

Husbands and wives deal with this struggle all the time in marriage. One spouse is never satisfied with what they have. Your friends have a brand new car and a new house, but you have to ride to work every day in the same car you were driving in high school. One spouse gets caught up in their work, pushing for the big promotion and the marriage starts to suffer. Less time is being spent at home and more time is being spent at the office. The focus is on the wrong things. Work, money and status become more important than your marriage, your family, and more importantly, your relationship with God.

If we have those worldly successes in our lives and we use them to serve others and glorify God, either through giving or helping others, then I feel like God says “he/she gets it”…

If we use those worldly successes for more gain and for boosting our own ego, through buying more “toys” and splurging on ourselves constantly, then I feel like God just shakes his head realizing we missed an opportunity to show His love to others.

Slowly, the Desire to Be On Top of Your Social Sphere Becomes All You Can Think About

Fortunately, God gives us a way out of this type of thinking. God gives us a pass. He says, “I don’t care about that big house…I care about your neighbor. I’m glad you are good at your job, but you know what really makes me happy? …I love when you serve other people. I love when you wash the dishes for your wife. I love when you help your neighbor change the oil in his car.”

We have to constantly fight our flesh in this area because we (in our flesh) naturally want to exalt ourselves. We want to be great!

When we offer ourselves to Christ, our entire view on this flips. Our goal as Christ-followers should be to exalt and promote HIM, not us. I believe that is one of, if not the biggest battle of flesh vs. Spirit. We have to consciously do without at times in our own lives to help lift others up.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always want to do that…I RARELY want to do that!!

Living with the mindset of “Last = First” is exactly what Jesus shows us in Scripture. His life was centered on being obedient to God. His love for God was mind boggling for everyone He came into contact with.

So by now, you are probably wondering where those 5 tips to help you become great are…? It is a pretty short list, and it is a pretty simple list…but I guarantee that you will struggle with multiple things on this list…if not every thing on this list!

Ok, ok…I won’t make you wait any longer…here they are:

Top 5 Tips to Help You Become Great

Stop focusing on what everybody else is doing.
Trust that God has you right where He wants you, right now.
See other people as equals.
Look for Ways to Help Other People.
Find something Positive in Every Situation.

All of those seem pretty simple right? Reading them is simple…putting them to practice day in and day out…that’s difficult! It is doable, but it will be difficult! I know…I struggle with this battle daily, and I bet a lot of you do too in one way or another.

If we follow God’s example, we see that He was all about helping others and increasing their faith in the Father! We have to make that our goal also. We become less so that God becomes more!

Yes it is and will continue to be a struggle, but we have to trust in the Lord and His promise that it is best for His Kingdom and that our reward for living in obedience to Him will FAR outweigh what it costs us in this life!