Dear Lord Jesus,
Please help me to listen and hear your message through today's scripture verses. Help me to let go of all that is clogging my mind, cleanse me of everything but you and your words.
Amen
Philippians 2:5-11
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death- even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
So this is what came to my mind after reading this. My simple interpretation:
Jesus became like a human, so that humans can become like Jesus, in that we too shall have eternal life and glory with him!
Jesus is exalted above all, and his name like Our Heavenly Father is to be honored above all, and one day it will be by everyone.
Trying to understand this more, I need to make it as simple as possible.
Jesus is God.
He became like a human and that meant giving up his powers. He was limited by his physical body, but his Spirit was stronger than his flesh and helped him to endure temptations of the flesh, like hunger and thirst. It helped him to endure the suffering he went through and death. His flesh died, but rose back to life by the power of His Spirit.
As a man God worked through him to show the people that He came from the Father and does nothing without the Father.
Now Just as Jesus humbled himself and was obedient to death so that he could be raised to life and sent us his Holy Spirit, we also must die to ourselves, our human nature ; so that by grace the Holy Spirit of God can live inside of us and help us to have the same mindset as Christ.
I understand this in my mind, but explaining it, so it makes sense to others; especially those who have never heard all of this, is not so easy.
Then actually walking and living in the Spirit is also difficult because we are also battling with our flesh!
As Pastor Delton shared his own inner battle story with us, in his sermon, I was thinking of my own inner battle that I had early Sunday morning.
I woke up early and wanted to get up and read the rest of the book Humility- by Andrew Murray. The overall message of the book is that we must die to ourselves in order to live by the Spirit of Christ Jesus. I had only the last two chapters to read, but as I read My mind wandered to things that I needed to get done before my family woke up. So I read a few pages and then put in a load of laundry. I read a little more and did a few other things. As I was finishing up the book, the last chapter was about actually living a holy humble life.
I began thinking first of all the things that I don’t like to do, starting with chores at home. My laundry room had been in need of cleaning for weeks, but I never took the time to really clean it. Today, the Spirit gave me strength to do what my weak flesh wanted me to put off. I thought about Jesus being like a servant and washing his disciples feet, of being persecuted and suffered so terribly for us;, for me. He didn't want to go through all that if there was another way, but there wasn't. He loved us so much, that he put us first, before himself!
I felt convicted that I was not living a life of humility, but letting my selfishness and pride guide me, and not the Holy Spirit. So after cleaning the laundry room and doing a load of laundry, I decided to make my family some breakfast. But now, again, I am bragging so you can see that I became a servant to my family. Pride! It always wants to shine. Shifting my thinking from wanting praise and acknowledgement, for my own glory, to one of humility and becoming nothing to myself so that I can be a vessel for God to shine through for his glory. So that His name is honored and praised, not mine!
Jesus was my motivator today, his prompting, and his word helped me to try and walk by His Spirit. It’s a beginning. Like a baby learning to walk. Walking in the Spirit, changing bad habits of the flesh to good habits of the Spirit, happens one step, at a time. Letting go of the old self takes time and work, but we are not alone in this it is by His power and strength that we are able to be like Christ here in the flesh. Our job is to obey, God’s job is to work through us. We just have to let him!
Well, it's late Sunday night and I need to send this off to our faithful blog editor.
I'm not sure if it makes any sense to anyone, but I hope it does.
Thanks for reading, and have a blessed day!
Patrice