Your Real Claim To Fame

Most everybody in life wants to be something good or great.  What I mean by this is that most people want a sense of accomplishment. They want to be seen in a certain light e.g. having made it financially.  For some it is in having achieved a certain status or a notable position in society.  Some people simply want to do good and be seen as being a regular person but not like others who live mundane or dependent lives.  While most people may not clamor for fame they want to be seen or viewed in a good way.  Nothing is wrong with that mindset.  This writer has a similar mindset.  I want people to think well of me.  If my name came up in any conversation, I would want it to be in a good way.  Our image, how people see us is important to us.  People judge you by what you do, where you live, and the company you keep.  People look at your relationships and make an assessment about what kind of person you are.  Wouldn’t it be a great thing if people’s assessment of you centered on your relationship with God?  How great would it be if your real claim to fame had to do with your relationship with Jesus Christ.  Look at what God said in Jer 9:23-24. 23 Thus says the Lord: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord." God did not disparage personal accomplishments.  However, he makes the point that of all the things a person could accomplish which includes riches, education, social status, and whatever else that could make us look good, he said our boasting should be in the fact that we know and understand God.  The knowledge of God requires an intimate relational knowledge with God is far different than mere information about Him.  When we come to know God intimately, the knowledge He reveals to us about Himself is then acted upon in such a way that we relate to Him in a way that is congruent with that knowledge.  For example, our God is immutable.  Immutable means that He does not change.  Therefore, what God called sin in the Old Testament is still sin today.  Those who know God intimately understands His immutability and therefore does not change even though people in our present-day culture seeks to sanction what God called sin.  Now God said that our boasting must be in the fact that we not only know Him intimately but understand Him.  Understanding God requires us to take what we know about Him and properly apply that knowledge to our decision making and in relating to others.  When we truly know and understand our God an intimate, reciprocal, love relationship is established.  The relationship we have with Him grows to a magnitude of such that God defines it.  For example Abraham was called God’s friend.  God called David a man after His own heart.  He said that Job was a righteous man.  When we’ve come to know and understand what God is really like and we interact with Him based on what we know and understand about Him, our knowledge and understanding of Him causes us to function far differently than just having mere information about Him, whereby we can quote scriptures or do Christian things.  Our knowledge and understanding of God become our claim to fame.  Everything else while good, becomes far less to us than our relationship with God that only comes through Christ Jesus.  So then, how well do you know and understand God?   If you really know and understand Him then your boasting, your satisfaction, your joy is not in your accomplishments or social status though you should feel good about them.  Your real joy and your reason to boast must be in the fact that you know God intimately and you understand how to adjust your life to Him because you know how to love Him and to please Him in all respects. No matter what our state in life maybe, from being wealthy or extremely poor, God has fixed it where any of us can lay claim to fame because we’ve come to know and understand who our God is.  Knowing and understanding Him is this writer’s claim to fame.  What is yours?

Rev. Lawrence Robinson