I came across a video recently that really made me chuckle, yet, I also realized that there was something so much bigger and even deeper that the video had shown. A non-celebrity young man dressed up looking cool, had hired some bodyguards to follow him through a mall. He walked around with the whole persona of being famous as his hired bodyguards joined in on the whole charade. Random people looked at him in awe, young girls wanted to take a selfie with him, another man watched in the distance trying to figure out who this celebrity was. He had many people fooled, as they admired him for his supposed status. Suddenly, this otherwise ordinary guy, was celebrated just for an assumed title of someone famous. It’s crazy how so many people get excited about celebrities, who are just people themselves, really good at what they do. If that young man would have had no bodyguards and walked in the mall and just acted normal, no one would have treated him with such a celebration. We glorify certain people, more than we should. Placing more importance on status, than just true human character and value. Even at times, treating them like idols. If we were all to celebrate God with the same vigor that celebrities, influencers, public figures, athletes and the like get, oh how much better our world would be! Friend, we need to start treating people, as people. Celebrating one another with the gifts God gives us, to use for God’s glory. Encouraging one another’s character and helping one another grow in our faith and as the people that God has created us to be. For no matter one’s social status, we all have value and something to offer the world. However, even more important than that, we need to place God where He deserves to be; front and center as the one to be celebrated above all.  I watched these people in awe of what they thought they knew. Though I know, if I want to celebrate someone, I won’t ever go wrong celebrating God, His goodness, His awesomeness and His love. For I am in awe, of His glory.

Erin Fitts-Brower

God above all

Romans 1:25 NIV

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

1 John 5:21 NIV

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Isaiah 42:8 NIV

“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.

Jeremiah 2:13 NIV

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Isaiah 2:22 NIV

Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?

Psalm 146:3-4 NIV

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Matthew 22:37 NIV

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

Philippians 4:4 NIV

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Psalm 115:1 NIV

Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.