Jesus told us that to follow Him we would have to deny ourselves. It amazes me how much selfish ambition that still exists in Christians, how much they want to promote themselves above the message, above the Word, above their precious brothers and sisters in Christ. They live on roller-coaster bouncing from envy to strife and back to envy again. One of the major roots of this is self-promotion.
The greatest key to a joyous life is this – learn to promote and exalt and lift up others. You do that and you will open the doors to blessings greater than you can ever imagine.
At the end of the day you have decisions on a regular basis – shall I promote me, or promote others, shall I do what is good for me, or do what is good for others. If you listen to William Booth’s one word sermon “OTHERS!” you will realize that the greatest life is the one where you live for others.
But so many Christians live for their own interests, live for their own loves, their own enhancement, their own promotion. Today, I want to encourage you to become a promoter of others. Promoting others will produce a richer life than you could ever achieve by self-promotion.
Do you realize that satan lost all of heaven because he promoted himself? This is not a little issue I am blogging about today, this is life or death stuff! Satan should have been at the throne of God exalting Jesus and exalting the Father and exalting the Spirit, but he went and exalted himself. The Scripture says satan said “I will exalt myself” (Isa. 14.13) and “I will exalt my throne” and “I will ascend”. That is not a good place to be.
Adam fell because he wanted to promote himself to the level of God. Adam wanted a promotion so he disobeyed God to get it. He should have been promoting God, and exalting God and thanking God, but he promoted himself, exalted himself and thanked himself, then he helped himself to the forbidden fruit and walked himself out of paradise.
Self promotion cost satan heaven and Adam paradise, so this is important. And satan loves tempting Christians to self-promote because he knows that if you promote yourself into positions, places and with people that God never promoted you into, and you get things that God never offered you, you will be in a mess. Satan knows how badly self-promotion can cost you, so he loves tempting Christians into self-promotion.
Every Christian at some point will be tempted to self-promote. Jesus at the same time gives us opportunities to promote someone else. When you hit that crossroads, satan will be saying promote yourself, and get all that stuff. Jesus is saying “Promote God, promote righteousness, promote the others, promote the kingdom, and I will add these things to you”. Become someone who gets things added to them, rather than a self-promoter. If you seek for things yourself rather than seek the kingdom, and promote yourself rather than promote others you will never enjoy the fullness of life God has for you.
I have seen many men promote themselves in business, and now they are in a dark place financially and in difficulty. Just like Adam they wanted to be something outside of God’s Word and God’s instruction and it never ends well and never leads to paradise. I have seen self promoters in ministry and they can get to a certain level but their workload in maintaining what God did not give them burns them out every time.
Do not waste your time and energy on promoting yourself, that’s my advice to all of you today. Self promotion does not work. Self promotion is building the tower of Babel all over again. Let God promote you and you work on promoting and helping others.
What does the Psalmist say:
6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. 7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. (Psalm 75.6-7, KJV)
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