The Humility of Christ

Key Verse to Read and Treasure

For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. (John 6:38)  

For Insight

Christ coming to earth was more than putting on flesh to live among us, it was a descending in every way. He left the comfort, peace, joy, perfection, trouble-free environment of heaven to come here. In heaven there was no hatred, no battles, no power struggles, no rejection, no disrespect, no darkness, no doubt, no pain, no hunger o thirst, no sickness, no resisting the Holy Spirit, no weariness, no questioning of his authority, personhood, nature, or power.

How Christ managed to live with sinful, hard-hearted, hard-headed, obstinate, combative, know-it-all people for thirty-three years could only be done by the power of God with the grace of God, through the Spirit’s enabling.

On days we feel we’ve had enough of our own kind, grown weary of obstinate, disagreeable, contentious people we need only think of Christ’s humility and ask him for perfect strength and grace to do our best to emulate his attitude. Remembering if he could do it so can we. Keeping in mind we are not descending from perfection entering a foreign land but born on earth and into the environment created by our own species.

That baby in the manger looked innocent enough, unknowing of what he was headed for, but in reality, fresh out of the womb, he already knew more than we could ever understand about the humility it would take to complete the will of his Father and stay on this journey till it was accomplished.

Jesus, help me on the days I feel I can’t put up with the obstinate, obnoxious, difficult people I cross paths with and are in my life. Help me to remember if you did it, so can I. After all, you descended from perfection, and I’ve only been born into the place I’ve always known. Amen     

Christmas Spirituality

have this in mind yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was I the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing taking the form of a servant being born I the likeness of men. And 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)