Acts 14
When They Want to Worship You
"Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you." (Acts 14:15)
Paul healed a man in Lystra who had never walked. The crowd’s response was immediate: these must be gods. They started bringing sacrifices to offer to Paul and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes and ran into the crowd.
Not because the miracle wasn’t real. It was. Not because the attention wasn’t significant. It was. They ran because the worship was going in the wrong direction and they couldn’t let it land there for a single moment longer.
Leadership has a way of attracting something that looks like admiration but functions like idolatry. People project onto you what they need God to be. They make you larger than you are. And if you’re not careful, you start to accept the projection, not always consciously, but enough to let it reshape how you carry yourself.
The corrective is exactly what Paul did. Immediate, public, clear. We are human beings. Like you. Not gods. Not exceptions. Not larger than you are. Human.
Leaders who stay healthy in public usually maintain something fiercely honest in private about exactly who they are and who they aren’t.
