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The floor was cold under my feet. A small pink bible fell comfortably in one hand as I paced between the dining room and kitchen.
“God, I want an honest word to share. Less of me, more of you”
I approached Philippians in the Bible and there was a large star drawing my attention.
“How to have an attitude like Christ”
Philippians 2:1-11
New International Version (NIV)
Imitating Christ’s Humility
2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness and compassion,2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The hairs seemed to stand up on my neck realizing how incredible this was in Jesus. He was the God-man come down to save us.
He didn’t consider equality with God though.
He humbled himself.
Last night I watched the vp debate, this morning I tuned into an argument over a pastor and a young female author.
Both made me sick.
God is good, man is not.
It’s very simple.
When people engage in a debate that do not agree on right vs. wrong the argument becomes chaotic.
Regarding the argument between this young author who stirs up controversy (my opinion) she has proved one thing. That SHE is right and others are wrong.
She brings no one closer to Christ in this fight.
Jesus knew balance.
He had a passion for people.
In Luke 19:40-41 Jesus is approaching Jerusalem when he sees the city and weeps over it. The Jewish leaders had rejected their King, and refused God’s offer of salvation in Jesus. Soon their nation would suffer.
In the very next moment as he enters the city (luke 19:45-48) he goes to the temple that was filled with merchants selling and He flips tables in righteous anger and proclaims that the temple is a place for prayer.
He knew balance.
He weeped and yet he still stood up to sin.
As believers we have to find that balance in a world run by evil.
We have to know when to speak and when to cry for our country.
I’m not there yet, last night I was angry over this election and the comments so many made.
People are mean, and online they throw courtesy out the door and attack in packs.
I don’t do this perfectly but Jesus did.
So allow me to step out and let Jesus stand in today.
Read Philippians 2:11 again.
We are to humble ourselves, but don’t let people take advantage of you because they push an idea that christians should never speak up.
I want to share with those tempted to jump into arguments one of the wisest things apart from God’s word that i’ve read on quarrelling.
Written by C.S. Lewis:
Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: ‘How’d you like it if anyone did the same thing to you?’—’That’s my seat, I was there first’—’Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm’—’Why should you shove in first?’ —’Give me a hit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine’— ‘Come on, you promised.’ People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saving that the other man’s behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies ‘To hell with your standard.’ Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952, this edition: 2001) 3-4.