Monday, December 12, 2011

Father, thank You for Your incomparable humility! Thank You for reminding me again that were it not for Your humility, my own spiritual condition would remain hopeless. Providing for my salvation required Your costly humility and You exercised it without hesitation—humble in the manger, humble on the cross. I pray in Your Son’s strong, yet humble name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

God Did Something Humble
by James Weekly

5Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. —Philippians 2:5-8

God did something humble when He took on human flesh. Jesus humbled Himself. We are stunned when we recognize the magnitude of our sin problem and then realize that in order to solve that problem God became a human baby! A what? “This is Your solution, God? A child is born?”

Now, I love kids, all right? And I’m fired up about kids. The very first ministry I ever had when I was maybe twenty years old, I taught a five-year-old Sunday School department for a whole year—five-year-olds. You’re like, “That’s what happened to his hair.” Right. I loved those kids.

But really, a child, God?! Really?! My grandpa used to say, “Never send a boy to do a man’s job.” And You sent a child? It’s such a counter-intuitive move. Why, God? Why did You do it that way?

Here’s why: Because the means is evidence of the heart behind the action. God could have showed up and said, “Fine! I’ll solve the problem of sin. Here—Zap! You’re toast.” But He didn’t. Instead, God did something so incredibly humble. You think about a vulnerable baby, the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus Christ became a baby. God became a baby? That is so humble. Make sure that you calculate properly God’s heart toward you if you have not received what He offers.

“He’s angry! He’s ticked that I am so sinful!”

No, He’s more broken that you keep hanging onto these worthless trinkets that have made you so restless and so miserable for so long, and wants so much to give to you what He sacrificed so greatly to bring.

“Unto us a child is born . . .” Not a ruler, a child. Not through a queen, but through a peasant woman. Not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem. Not born to a party, but born to poverty in a stable—that is so humble. Humility as only God could pull off!

Journal:

· What are my most memorable examples of Jesus’ humility as demonstrated in the New Testament?

· How does that humility affect me? How will I respond?

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