"My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground.There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him." Isaiah 53:2
"rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." Philippians 2:7
"But Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew human nature, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man." John 2:24-25
Did you get it, no form, no comeliness(nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance), no reputation, emptied himself. Jesus would not present himself or commit himself to people who were attracted to other humans on that line of attraction, he knew mankind was prone to idolatry.
Think about that, never was there a human more to be desired than Jesus Christ, but God did not use intoxicating charisma or give Jesus the most handsome appearance, or a Mr. Atlas physique. No, as a matter of fact, the opposite, he was less than common. Not only in that realm but in every other way too, born in a stable, in a manager, from Bethlehem Ephratah, the smallest of places, lived in Nazareth(can anything good come from there?). A carpenter's son, he could do no mighty works there because he was so common, people couldn't believe.
Yet, when he called, men left the Father's fishing business, left their position and livelihood(Matthew), and all the others, there was something that drew, something other, something otherworldly. There was a call that vibrated the deepest levels of desire and attraction, something high, something holy, a pull that contained eternity, real meaning, an eternal purpose. A call that awakened a desire to know, a passion to follow, to forsake, to endure, to reach, to grasp for its grip, all else becomes secondary and fades in the distance.
And its attraction had nothing in it of form and comeliness, nothing of reputation, not charisma, not Colgate smiles and Brooks brothers suits with smooth words of advantages and benefits. Not a polished sales pitch, or crafty electioneering.
No Jesus knew we are prone to that, after all, it was that that caused us to fall in the first place, Satan himself transforming himself with all that line of appeal, and we swallow it, hook, line, and sinker.
Now think about ministry today, especially in the Western world, form and comeliness, reputation, presentation, performance, lights, camera action. Get it here, get now, get it all, your best life now. Who is the slickest, the most handsome, most charismatic, who will tell me how great I am, and how God lives and breathes for me and my destiny?
I believe its idolatry, what we have made ministry to be, its an affront to a holy God. I believe it we don't do like Gideon did, tear down the Idol that was in His Fathers house, God will tear it down himself.
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