One of us
The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:
He always had the nature of God,
but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God.
Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant.
He became like a human being
and appeared in human likeness. (verses 5-7)
Read Philippians 2: 1-11
My mind boggles at what it must have meant for Jesus to put aside his being God to become human. God is so much more than we are. We pale into insignificance alongside of God. Yet Jesus was prepared to humble himself, to become one of us.
He did it so that we might become, once more, what human beings were always meant to be: God’s children and God’s friends. It also means that we Christians have a God who truly knows what it’s like to be human. He was one of us, living as we live, feeling what we feel, knowing how we are tempted. And he also experienced what it was like to die in agony.
And so many of us have rejected him. However, the time is coming when ‘all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord’. For some it will be a case of ‘Oops, Jesus is Lord after all’. But for those of us who truly know him, we will cry out with joy and triumph, acknowledging what we already know.
The one who is God humbled himself to serve others. Let’s follow his example.
Thank you, Father, for sending your Son, so that I can proclaim with joy, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’. Amen.
by Robert Turnbull, in ‘Living Water for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2001)
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