2 Corinthians 12:9 boasts I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities.

When Paul took the opportunity to defend his apostleship he did so by referring to how much he suffered for Christ not by how much he had built God’s Kingdom. This is the antithesis of the marketing we receive from the television church.

We gravitate toward their message because we want the best life now but this demonstrates our poverty of spirit rather than our love for God.

If we loved the things of God more than the things of this world we would long more for the things of God and even God Himself than we would the trinkets and toys of this world which are destined to perish with us.

Our duty as God’s children is to show the world the greatness of our Father. God seeks His glory and honor in the world not our glory and honor.

We want success so we will be honored by men. Jesus’ success was the loss of His life as a perfect sacrifice.

As we lift up Jesus He will draw people to Himself. When we lift up ourselves we take the attention off from Jesus.

Certainly God uses our abilities to accomplish His purposes, after all, He created us and gave us those abilities. But those abilities are gifts to be used for blessing others while glorifying the Father of all Who gives all good things to people for our benefit and His glory.

As the one who prepared the way for the coming of the Lord, did so by becoming less so that He would become more so too we must surrender ourselves as servants of others so that Jesus is elevated among us.

Our goal is for people to see and experience Jesus through us not that people would experience us and how much God has done for us.

People need more Jesus and less of us.

This will happen as we focus more on Him and less upon ourselves.