True GREATNESS!

Call it the sin of eating the forbidden fruit. Call it naivety and deception. Call it gullibility and disobedience. Call it what you may, but the temptation Adam faced in the Garden of Eden was the temptation of self-importance! He made a conscious decision to esteem himself above God. He declared that he knew better than God and that he did not need God. We might say He assumed to know better than God that the fruit was good, and that he could provide for himself what his soul desired. Adam—the self-important and self-sufficient one! Oh yes! And the curse of self-importance continues to reveal itself all around us everyday, and we rarely need to go any further than the mirror to find it rear its ugly head. But then we read a statement like this from Mt.8:27, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” Was this a question pertaining to Adam? Was it a question pertaining to you or I? No! It was a question pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth—the Savior of mankind. Down the corridors of time has there ever been anyone like Jesus? Granted Adam was likely a great zoologist, but could he command the wind and the waves to obey him? No! But who can this be that even the winds and waves obey Him? The Bible says that the “men marveled” at Jesus. This is the antonym of self-importance—to marvel at someone else. And it was the proper reaction of those who beheld Him. Self-importance fades in the light of true greatness and glory. The charade of self-sufficiency is exposed in the presence of true power. Jesus is still to be marveled at today as He exercises His dominion over all of His creation. The winds and the seas still obey Him and hear His hidden voice. He is true greatness, and the embodiment of all glory. And as we look around at all that is His, at what He has made, and at what He controls may the delusions of our own self-importance shrink as we marvel at Him.