As This Little Child

So the Teacher sharpens the focus and in doing so He gets them to sort of confront THEMSELVES – how do they see themselves and their lives and goals and their concepts of success and greatness? He makes them ask/answer the question: "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?": the question of self-image or self-knowledge.

It's a thread running through the whole Bible – know thyself. It's in the Cain and Abel story (Gen 4 – "Cain, sin is crouching at your door and you must master it…") It's prominent in the emotional reflections of the Psalms ("why are you downcast O my soul?" "what is Man?…") Lamentations has Jeremiah musing on grief. Paul ("do not think too highly of yourself…" Rom 12.3, 16) Augustine in his Confessions, Calvin in his Institutes and right down to present day writers (C.S. Lewis – "the prayer before all prayers is 'May it be the real I who now addresses the real Thou.'") The importance of self-concept.

And picking up this important theme, Jesus asks the first disciples AND asks US AS WELL – "who do you think you are?" And how does the answer come to bear on you achieving your life's purpose…the reason you were born, destiny, greatness? How you see yourself is CRUCial.

Using the Greek word for FIRST - the word PROTO ("whoever wants to be FIRST/PROTO will be last") I want to look at self-concept - Pursuit, Paradox. Practice:

1. The Proto-Pursuit
2. The Proto-Paradox
3. The Paradox Put Into Practice