But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. – Acts 14:14-15 Imagine this scene: first century AD and two dudes come into your town and command a cripple person you knew your entire life to get up and walk. Then the person actually gets up and begins to walk. What would you do? That’s right, you would become their groupie! Some of you may admire them, others would respect them, yet still others would idolize them so that one day they can be like them. The bottom line is that we would want to give them credit for what they did. But instead, what happens is that the people of this city call them gods and begin to worship Paul and Barnabas. The priest of Zeus even brings a cow to sacrifice before them! It’s crazy, right? But then again, it’s not THAT crazy. Just think about the deal you brokered for your company just last week and how many people at your company bought you Martinis to pour down your throat as a result. What about the orphans you provided presents to for Christmas? Didn’t the orphans make you feel like ole St Nick? How about when you paid for your family vacation that one time? I bet your parents are still bragging about it to their friends. I got it, what about that church you built from scratch with the six hundred non-committal members that will bleed for the gospel in a war torn, third world country but can’t find the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. For all these things that you do, don’t you receive praise? Don’t you become rewarded for your valor or courage? Even your vision and leadership, if not your cunning and nimbleness? We easily lose grip on the reality of how we got to where we are when we’re thrown a little praise from people. When honestly assess our “accomplishments,” we’ll probably realize the fact that we personally accomplished very little, despite the amount of toil we suffered through to get there. In fact, we probably realized that there was more “luck” (unexplainable coincidences) and good circumstances that we happened to arrive at in the perfect moment than anything else. Nonetheless, we take the credit because we were there and people are pointing at us, and even our humble modesty points to our own ability. We then begin to believe that and become idols to ourselves, using our past “achievements” as a benchmark for future potential and present pride. When we become idols to ourselves, our next achievement must be greater than our last, we have to be better than the next person and there is faint cry to become godlike in person. This isn’t real, nor is it remotely possible. We have to constantly be aware of how we see ourselves, our work, and our achievements because it can lead us to make ourselves idols. Life becomes unsustainable when we are own idols. We’d be burned out or burning out. We never live up to the hype or the glory. We would never meet our own expectations, we would never be satisfied and our results would feign in comparison to the work God can do with His pinky; but we won’t get any chance to experience what it is He does if we’re busy worshipping ourselves. Paul and Barnabas only happened to be where God was moving and pointed it out. They could have easily taken credit of what happened– they would have been worshipped as gods in that city. Instead they “tore their clothes” and pointed out their imperfections and their ungodliness so they wouldn’t become idols to the people or to themselves. They knew what had happened could not be replicated on their own. They weren’t sold on themselves. Let’s pray that we don’t become idols to ourselves, but instead, worship God for what He does for us in our lives.