What do you want?

A short scene in John 4:1-3 reveals that the religious crowd was always checking up on Jesus. What was he doing, why was he doing it, was he doing it in the right place?...and on and on. They had heard that more people were following Jesus than were following John and for whatever reason, they wanted to know what was going on.

Jesus did not care about this kind of thing. This was not what really mattered to him. They could debate and talk about what he was doing all day...he didn't care. Also, he was not interested in getting any kind of recognition for what was going on. However, he was interested in defining for those following him, what was important in life. If, when he left them they knew what really mattered and were living that way, he had done his job.

So, when he learned that these religious types were talking about this, he took off. He deliberately avoided any games these pseudo religious people were playing, He knew there was only one thing that really mattered and that their only concern was how his popularity was becoming greater than theirs.
What do you want? Who is your audience? Are you looking for a compliment from someone for some tidbit of information you know? Or, are you doing everything you can to focus people on Jesus rather than yourself?

This week deliberately do everything you can to not draw attention to yourself. Think about your conversations and what you talk about. Listening more than talking not only focuses attention away from yourself but you also learn about others.