In some sports there are cheerleaders whose task it is to express enthusiasm for the team and the fans. Cheerleaders do not actually take part in the game. Do you find it helpful to have people cheering you on to carry out your assigned tasks? Do you require it? For there are sports in which the athletes exert just as much effort without additional personnel to encourage them. Things can be more subtle in my Kingdom, but the same principles apply. Have you encountered people who gave up on tasks because they felt unappreciated? Anything is easier if people express gratitude for it.

How much do you know about me? You refer to a saving knowledge of God and that is a valid concept, but it is available to children in a moment. I do not require you to know much about me for me to accept you. Are you following on to know the Lord? If you understand the question you will know that it involves more than reciting a list of doctrinal points. It is more a matter of relational truth than propositional truth. This is a process rather than an event, and your comprehension will be transformed as you walk with me. I am patient.

Where do you expect to find me? Do you go to church to meet with me? Yet you hold the doctrine of omnipresence, which affirms that I am everywhere. I can meet you in church, but I am not limited to that location. Do you see me everywhere you look? I wasn’t really welcome in church myself, and those who looked to me for exalted glory were disappointed, although I did some great miracles. My stories were about familiar, commonplace, and ordinary things, and yet the truth of the Kingdom of God was in them. I will come to you disguised as your everyday life. Will you see me when I do?

Do you have a reputation? Is it important to you to maintain it? I made myself of no reputation in this world even though I could have claimed greatness. I led a simple life and did not seek offices or titles or wealth. Do you think of me as the Son of God? But I called myself the Son of man. John the Baptist had the right idea when he said that he must decrease that I might increase. But did I seek to increase? I said that the poor in spirit were blessed for the Kingdom of Heaven was theirs.