Living on a pedestal …

“Get around the right people. Your network = your net worth!”

That came from a “success coach” just a couple days ago. It is a common and popular refrain from those who see themselves as gurus of “success.” But I’ve also heard the same thing from fellow pastors and other church leaders, as well as from fellow clinical therapists.

If you want to harken back to the days of the Pharisees, then go ahead and heed such exhortations. But if you want to walk in the footsteps of Christ, forget such teaching that promotes yourself and your material gains as central to life.

Who are these “right people” the coach refers to? Only those who promote or contribute to your self interests. So then, who are the “wrong” people? Anyone else!

That, plain and simple, is worshiping the self. To worship means to ascribe worth or value to. To draw into your life only those who promote or contribute to your self interests, while shunning all others, is to ascribe great worth or value to yourself.

That is worship.

It’s the kind of garbage we routinely get when people continue to look to business and culture for direction in life instead of to Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of life.

What people did Jesus purposely seek out to spend time with?

“Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with such scum?'” Mark 2:15-16.

Jesus Christ — who, unlike any of us, is actually worthy of worship — sought out those most in need on His mission to seek and save the lost. Our mission isn’t our own self aggrandizement, it is an extension of the same mission Jesus was on.

When you worship Jesus Christ, the people you purposely seek out to bring into your life changes because it’s no longer about you. You’re not at the center of your own life, Christ is. Instead of seeing the needy, the hurting, the lost, the sinner as “scum,” you see them as Jesus sees them — lost souls who need saving and loving, mercy and grace, kindness and gentleness.

But that is heresy in the minds of those caught up in making life about personal gain. To those with such pursuits, I offer a question from Jesus Himself:

“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” Mark 8:36.

Scotty