Monday Devotion - 29th June 2020
Scripture: Philippians 2:3-4
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.
How often do you hear ‘practice what you preach’? In most cases, it is offered as a snide rebuke, and we may recoil whenever we hear someone use it as the basis of their argument. However, it is a turn of phrase that challenges us to evaluate how we are living. Think about it like this; do you live by the standards and beliefs that you promote and teach?
For any logical Christian, we get that the call to be a Christian is one to lay your own self-interests to the side. Our personal needs and wants are to fall further down the pecking order. We are to live with a greater concern for God and others. To use biblical phraseology, we are to carry our cross daily.
But do our lives reflect this?
Even though we may know this way of life to be true and correct. We may nod our heads in firm agreement whenever the preacher refers to it. But do we truly live in such a way that we are more genuinely concerned about the well-being of other people?
In verses 3-4, Paul is really beginning to up the ante as his focus veers toward the majestic humility of Jesus Christ. It is so crucial to read these verses not as helpful reminders, but as explicit apostolic commands. These are God-inspired directives for our lives. We can not pick and chose whether we live by these commands or not. Paul, and indeed God does not give us the option.
Note how verse 3 begins; ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit’. There is to be no room given for moments of selfishness. Moments were we prize our comfort and pleasure over another. At all times we must value others as more significant than ourselves. Why? Because any other human being, regardless of their morality is an image-bearer. Their value is not acquired by their merit or lack of. It is found in the fact that they reflect the God who created them, and whether they want to acknowledge that or not is beside the point.
If you want to increase your love and concern for any person, don’t start by thinking of their behaviour, actions or beliefs. Start by reminding yourself that the person before you is a created being designed to reflect our glorious God. That will certainly change how you think of most people.
An Impossible Task
You may read the second part of verse 3 and it may jar with you. How in the world can I treat others as more significant than me? You and I live in a world where the focus is all about self. Do whatever makes you happy. Don’t surround yourself with negative or unsuccessful people. Or the therapeutic-Christian alternative; God has great plans for your life. Everything is me, me, me. Even many charitable efforts at the root are done to enhance our self-esteem.
You take that lifestyle and compare it to the life and witness of Jesus Christ and you quickly identify the chasm of difference. We see just how truly humble our saviour was. His whole life was about glorifying the Father. Every moment of his life was for the betterment of others. He was not consumed with popularity or creating a comfortable life. He came to seek and save. He came to the earth that he created, yet he wasn’t even recognised by his creation and he didn’t even have a place to lay his head.
One of the reasons many of the Jews did not believe in Jesus was that they were expecting a strong valiant messiah to arrive on the scene, something akin to Braveheart. But then Jesus of Nazareth appears, gentle and lowly, healing the sick and befriending sinners. His ministry lasts a mere three years until he is crucified as a heinous criminal on a Roman cross. Strong, powerful warriors don’t die on a cross. But Jesus did. And he did so for you. He died on that cross for the sins of the world, as that is why he came. He came to earth to save sinners. He came with the interests of others at the forefront of his mind.
To be humble feels like an impossible task. It feels like a weight we can not carry. And that is the point, it is impossible. This side of eternity, we will never perfect humility or any other godly characteristic to that point. But we place our trust in the one who was truly humble and then live in such a way that points others to him.
C.S. Lewis famously once said;
‘Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less’
Spend a few moments thinking about that statement.