Have you ever noticed that when we go out of our way to look smart, we most risk appearing stupid? Like subtly trying to slip a newly learned big word into our conversation, if all goes well, the other party might think “my, my, what an astoundingly studied and verbose vocabulary he has.”

Then again when our clever and brilliant plan to pass ourselves off as another Shakespeare, backfires because, come to find out, we didn’t quite grasp the true breadth of the words meaning, or the gentle nuances of its pronunciation. Well, then the thoughts behind our bland-eyed listener might run more along the lines of, “He did NOT just say that, did he? What an idiot.”

In the Bible, Jesus told a story about a man going to a party and seating himself at one of the choice seats of honor at the table; however, then the host showed up with a more important guest, and asked the first guest to step down and take the empty seat that was left at the end—thus making the first guest appear foolish in front of everyone as he had to get up and be demoted.

Jesus then said it’s better to choose the least seat, so that when the Master shows up He will call to you and raise you up in front of the rest of those gathered, by seating you in a place of honor.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of raising ourselves to appear better to the host world, but just remember the man at the party.