…just like everyone else on this earth.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02vku-6fZWQ]

I know it seems to be a harsh statement but it is a true statement that needed to be said.  Between X-Factor, American Idol, America’s got Talent, and other talent/ reality shows you see the tryouts that make all of us laugh profusely but in retrospect are a by -product of one of two [really] sad things.

1. They are just trying to get their 15 minutes of fame or…
2. They have been lied to and truly believe they are a good _________ (you fill in the blank)

You see we hear a mantra that is shaping our thinking when it comes to our lives.  I have heard it so many times before and I thought no one actually believed it until I began to listen what my peers and culture had to say.  They both screamed to everyone I knew that:

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

Now at first I saw nothing wrong with this message until it morphed into “I’m unique, I’m better than everyone [at something], and doggone it, people need me!  The [basic] problem with that message is the whole thing!  You are not unique, I am not unique, we are just ordinary people.  I promise you that there is someone taller, stronger, more beautiful, talented, intelligent, etc. than you are.  The problem is that we begin to buy this lie hook, line, and sinker.  This in turn subversively begins to shape the way we speak, live, and how we interact with our world.

As a Christ follower realizing this about myself was disconcerting to say the least.  When I look at the Dr.Pepper commercial (featured above) it’s a prime example of what I am talking about.  All it is doing is impressing on you that you are special when really the only extraordinary thing about you (as a Christ-follower) is the Holy Spirit that resides in you.

Please hear me, every Christian has the opportunity to be extraordinary, the word simply means “beyond what is ordinary”.  Unfortunately, in our culture, we have satisfied this desire with celebrities.  We have become voyeurs of the “extraordinary” when the Lord wants to give us extraordinary lives of our own.  As Christians we need to stop walking around like pigeons with our breast puffed out and look to what could make us extraordinary.

Do you want to be extraordinary?  If you are born again, the Holy Spirit lives in you, you have the extraordinary One on the inside. However, you must be willing to let what may seem ordinary work in you the character necessary to be extraordinary.