Humility Vs Hype

The question that has plagued me today is:

~How do we as Christians live in a world that is self promoting, self indulgent, self serving, self, self, self, and not subscribe to it all?

~How do we tell others about Jesus, love people, serve people all while only glorifying God and not glorifying self? Look what I did. See who I told.  Look how many came.

 I work in a book store that is full of authors who have become insanely confused with the topic of "self glorification vs. God glorification". Their books are about promoting themselves, telling stories about themselves, telling their ideas, their ideology, even their theology....all the while glorifying themselves instead of their creator. Then there are other books that teach you to put you first and want to teach you to promote yourself. Pray the right prayers to get what you want. Live your best life. Create the life you want. They seem to be about you, me, we, us and not about HIM.

If you actually read the books you will find them talking about praying to God for what you want, finding the "greatness" that God created for you to do, or praying the right prayer to make something happen. After all doesn't the bible say that YOU can do ALL things through Christ who gives YOU strength. Phil. 4:13 Pastors/Speakers/Authors throw that scripture around all the time so that we can use it to feel empowered to live our own ambitions with "God's Strength". They speak as if God exists for you/me instead of the other way around.

Now don't hear me wrong, there are authors that are not about themselves. They teach/preach all about the gospel. They tell their life stories, but their stories aren't ultimately about themselves. They teach all about glorifying God. Living a life that is for the glory of God not for the glory of self.
If you wonder where you fall in these 2 categories of books or authors then ask yourself which end of a telescope do you use when you view God?  Are you small or is He?

Back to my original question. How do we as Christians not get caught up in the hype of "self"? 

The conclusion I have come to today is this.....

We SERVE others instead of expecting to be served.

We LOVE others even when we feel unloved or they seem unlovable.

We TELL others about Jesus not about ourselves.

We GO and make disciples not go and get twitter followers.

And we do all of it without shouting it from the rooftops or tweeting about it. 

The definition of hype is : Extensive Publicity.

The definition of humility is: Not proud or Bold, Meek  

We must draw close to God, feed ourselves with good, sound teaching of the gospel and live in a way that only points to God. It is then and there that we can attempt to live humbly and somewhere in that humble life we are striving to live, if we are able to forget about our attempts to be humble, may we then in forgetting ourselves take the first steps towards humility.  

CS Lewis says in Mere Christianity:

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: be will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody.

Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

2 Timothy 3-5 (The Message) You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They'll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you're doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God's servant.

LL