The Greatest Praise You Can Ever Have

 December 28, 2024

Saturday

John 13:16 (ESV) ¹⁶ Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

I bake. Lots of people say I am a great cook. The truth is that I just follow recipe's. I suppose those people who are not great cooks don't want to follow recipe's. I am just copying what another did before me. I consider it a success if I can imitate something good that another person did.

Being a follower of Jesus should never be trying to get ahead of Him. It should never be trying to do something that He hasn't modeled. It must be what He did. It is truly being compliant to His will. It receives His power as the follower is simply an instrument of His will.

With everything that has been done by humans, there is a desire to do it better than the best. Races are run trying to beat the best time ever. Yet, when it comes to Jesus, our best hope is to fully do what He has done. We can preach but not better than Him. We can encourage but not better than Him. We can draw crowds bigger than His but we cannot do anything more than He has done with a crowd. No matter how pure in heart we attempt to be we do not approach His purity.

If not careful, we can think we are greater than Jesus without the nerve to actually say it. We can sin with the excuse of being greater than Jesus. We can even criticize what Jesus said once we think we are greater than Him. It is here that we must be very careful. Arrogance can sneak up on us. We may say that we are not greater than Jesus but act like it in every way.

John the Baptist was the prevailing preacher before Jesus. When John's disciples pointed out Jesus, John knew who Jesus was. He knew who he was too. He knew that he wasn't worthy to tie up Jesus sandals. He said that Jesus must increase while he decreased. 

So, when anyone says that you have done something great you might say, "I just followed the recipe'." Or, I just did what my master did. That will be the greatest praise you can ever have.