Who Are You Without A Title?

Could we become title-less? Or become diminished culturally and socially? Become LESS? Its a path that much of society and a social media driven world finds hard to come to terms with, much less, truly come to understand. How can we die to self if we are chasing after things of this world?

Society is teaching us to hustle, hustle, hustle and go after the next best thing. We see titles flaunting left and right and even the idolization of titles. We introduce others by their accomplishments and what they have achieved.

I am reminded that Jesus never introduced himself as Jesus, the Messiah, nor Jesus, the Son Of God. After doing many miracles, he often told those healed to not tell anyone. He wasn’t building a name for himself, nor trying to make something happen to look good in the world’s eyes.

All of the things we are chasing after, to climb up the ladder of success keeps us focused on self. That is one path that is highly spoken of.If asked who are you, would you be comfortable just replying with your name and not what you do or who you are in your world of accomplishments?

The other path that is least spoken of is the path to death. That path requires us to die to self.

To die to self is the path where we are stripped of everything that competes with Jesus and when we surrender, we will look so ridiculous to everyone around us. Jesus asks us to take up our cross and follow him. To truly take up our cross and follow him means we have to die to self. Its the path of words that we know, but on the side of actually being lived out, that space is void in the lives of many.

The world is showing us one way and it seems good, it feels great, but we end up getting leadership from world, vs leadership from Holy Spirit.

We can still have titles, gifts, careers, and work towards things, but when we are lead by the title, or exalting the title above God, exalting our gifts, becoming the gifting, finding our identity in that title or accomplishment, feeling like we aren't anyone without doing something important, its time to examine things beyond the surface.

We can become obsessed with success, roles, titles, accomplishments etc, but if we are losing touch with our first love, the title, gift, career, accomplishment becomes our everything instead of Jesus. It all becomes an idol in our lives.

Culture can be in competition with Jesus. Social status can be in competition with Jesus. Who WE think we are, can be in competition with who Jesus is.

Jesus said to all of his followers, “If you truly desire to be my disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace my ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to my ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for my glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep. Even if you gained all the wealth and power of this world, and all the things it could offer you, yet lost your soul in the process, what good is that? So why then are you ashamed of being my disciple? Are you ashamed of the revelation-truth I give to you? Luke 9:23-26(a)

The truth is, and we always have to be REAL with ourselves, is that we say we are believers and follow Jesus, but so many times, our actions are not in alignment. I got a check in my spirit one time where I was saying one thing, but my actions did not match. That is not who I want to be. I was heartbroken that I was behaving that way. It wasn’t intentional, but yet there I was.In Luke 15, there were massive crowds following Jesus and I don’t think he was about that fake follower life. He wanted those that followed him to know the truth, apply it to their lives and be true to what they speak and do.

As massive crowds followed Jesus, he turned to them and said, “When you follow me as my disciple, you must put aside your father, your mother, your wife, your sisters, your brothers; it will even seem as though you hate your own life. This is the price you’ll pay to be considered one of my followers. Anyone who comes to me must be willing to share my cross and experience it as his own, or he cannot be considered to be my disciple. So don’t follow me without considering what it will cost you. For who would construct a house before first sitting down to estimate the cost to complete it? Otherwise he may lay the foundation and not be able to finish. The neighbors will ridicule him, saying, ‘Look at him! He started to build but couldn’t complete it!’ Luke 15:25-29 TPT

There is a cost to following Jesus. And its so easy to say we will follow, but only few will truly count the cost and actually pay that price.

To become less and to die to self, in our minds, feels like we are becoming a no body. It does feel like a death and it really is. To pull away from everything that seems normal, and things we have done or thought was the important thing is harder than one anticipates, but the Lord gives us grace and leads us into his heart as we step away from the things the world deems important. Its something that has to be pondered within our hearts and taken below the surface level to truly unpack, revisiting multiple times for that revelation to truly get down in our hearts and become understanding.

So when we think its becoming a nobody, and a person no one sees, its actually so much more than that. In reality we are truly becoming the ones he can use.

‭‭"Brothers and sisters, consider who you were when God called you to salvation. Not many of you were wise scholars by human standards, nor were many of you in positions of power. Not many of you were considered the elite when you answered God’s call.But God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise, and God chose the puny and powerless to shame the high and mighty. He chose the lowly, the laughable in the world’s eyes—nobodies—so that he would shame the somebodies.For he chose what is regarded as insignificant in order to supersede what is regarded as prominent, so that there would be no place for prideful boasting in God’s presence. For it is not from man that we draw our life but from God as we are being joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. And now he is our God-given wisdom, our virtue, our holiness, and our redemption.And this fulfills what is written: If anyone boasts, let him only boast in all that the Lord has done!" ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭1:26‭-‬31‬ ‭

So sisters, may we not chase after titles and accolades, that have no eternal meaning, nor value, but we truly become his disciples willing to lay it all down in order to truly gain what matters most. May we make Him our number one and truly give our heart what it longs for. All those other things keep us wanting more and more of what the world has to offer, but what if we were able to chase after Jesus as hard and see what He wants to give us.

Much Love,

Crystal Keefer