Fame,Power,and Faith

Mt 20:16
So the last will be first,and the first last.

As I sit at my desk I can see an old and worn out Hollywood Star Map I found when I drove from Atlanta to Santa Monica California with a best friend Danny in the summer of 1996. I too like so many others felt some cosmic call to the mystical land of dreams. What would I have wagered then to find untold fortune and to be known,or better yet splashed across a billboard that is never changed along the sunset strip at the corner of the Viper Room then owned by Johnny Depp. You laugh,but nobody at the grocery store can stay away from the pages of US Weekly. We are star struck,and there is an innate, human need to be known. I think on some archtypal level we identify with a celebrity and think it could be us;or if that is what we must posses but cant achieve great do we consider ourselves less than. Now its become a way of life and purpose for many. Now starting at a young age kids want to be movie stars not doctors and lawyers. You may want to be the next american Idol. There is nothing wrong with seeking fame,but are we actually just a little grandiose in the diversion of acclaim that masks true societal pains creating a false utopia. Because when things are really bad where is the foundation when it all comes crumbling down.Now I realize the image Hollywood conjures is just that an image that is illusory. Culture is wonderful,but the manipulation of mass exposure is honestly just dizzying at times. I personally have to be grounded in truth that lasts. I was on a quest to be great and ended up broken beyond my means to atone for a debt I owed. I could osscilate between self deprecation and the heights of self love on a dime that always ended in disaster. As I look back on this imbalance it is what Im most greatful for because when I had nothing I was able to recieve and take in everything in Jesus Christ. All the desolate places I had stopped at on my journey of self preservation, hurt,and ruin I found were taken up in all the varied wounds of Jesus body and resurection from the dead. FREEDOM was granted. Let your aspiration be centered on Christ and you will most certainly find what is imperishable and great. I want to be known and famous at the throne of God through all the needy prayers of a beggar I offer up. In Philipians 2 the apostle Paul offers up a very distinct contrast to our modern cultural idea of fame and greatness. In Phil 2:6 it says "Make your attitude that of Christ Jesus who existing in the form of God did not consider equality with God to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. For this reason God also highly exalted Him with the name that is above every name." Jesus wasnt just great for the sake of being great He gave the fulness of God away to ransom the world. Now there are members of UNICEF who make great sacrifices to aid cultural causes. I applaud Angelina Jolie,Brad Pitt,and George Clooney for graciously lending there celebrity to benefit those less fortunate and in need. What we need is Divine aid in the person of Jesus Christ. On my journey to achieve I realized that even my so called "greatness" will never measure up to the standard set by Jesus. I know it has been done. Now I begin to live. You can be who you are without the need of any other superficial posturing when you realize you have been called by God and Christ before the foundation of the world.(Eph 1:4).
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