Philippians 2:5 "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
-
There are many paradoxes in the Bible. We're taught that to find ourselves we must lose ourselves. The first will be last...the last will be first. It is better to give than to receive. We must experience death to find life. In the passage above, Paul teaches us that we must "run on empty" to fully live. Jesus is our model. He was, in fact, God and yet He took on flesh and experienced all that it means to be a son of Adam. Think about it...He'd spent eternity to that point with His Father. They designed and executed Creation....and then, when it became necessary to step into that Creation to do repairs...Jesus took on the mission. Not only that...He could have come to earth and easily dominated the scene. He could have wiped out the Romans in a day with one word or with an angelic attack. He could have set up dominion over the earth at that point...but mankind wasn't ready. First we needed a faith centered transformation where we became emptied of our sin-center to experience a savior-center and an ongoing spirit-center. And then, like Jesus, we needed to learn to live no longer for ourselves but for others. The two preceding verses specifically address this:
-
3 "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."
-
We go farthest when we're running on empty.
-
blessings,
Rob Smith
-------------------------------------------
"Death is inevitable. Life is a choice!"
John 11:25
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."
No comments:
Post a Comment