"Your attitude should be the same Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.” -Philippians 2:5-8 (NLT)
The Challenge: Can you give up the personal “rights” you have given yourself in order to serve others first?
We all have this secret list of personal rights, or liberties, which we've given ourselves. For me, I feel like I have earned the right to be known for having a slightly-above-normal level of intelligence. You know it's a sensitive liberty when you get angry at someone attempting to take it from you. I can vividly recount times when I have gotten so angry at someone who implies in some way that I don't know what I'm doing. It's pride – one of my sensitive liberties is a selfish pride in my “intelligence”.
Can you think of any sensitive liberties you have in your life? You can usually tell it's a sensitive liberty by the way you react when someone tries to take it from you. Chances are, you're also thinking of yourself first, before you think about others.
Oh, we all have our sensitive liberties – but should we grip them as tight as we do? No. Look at Christ – God incarnate. He had all the rights in the universe, but did he demand those rights from others? Not while he was on Earth. Read this again:
“Your attitude should be the same Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.”
I'll let God's Word do its work.
No comments:
Post a Comment