Thursday, April 14, 2011

Let This Mind…


Philippians 2:5-8 - Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

There are so many remarkable things about this passage.  No human mind can grasp the full weight of the fact that the God of the universe, in the Divine person of Christ, was made “a little lower than the angels” and humbled as a man.  Creators are supposed to show themselves powerful over their creations, yet Christ chose to become like His creation. 

However, the fantastic thing about Christ as seen in this passage is not simply His humility.  Humility is great, but it is never an end unto itself.  Humility is for a purpose, and that purpose is living life for another.  It is to give the glory to something else.  It is the submitting of oneself to a higher authority.  Christ, during His life on earth, was the perfect example of humility through His absolute submission to the authority of God the Father and perfect dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Christ was willing, at the will of the Father, to obey by leaving the glory of His own heavenly kingdom in exchange for a humble life on earth.  He was willing to submit Himself to the Father by becoming a man.  Not only a man, but He was humbled as a servant of His own creation.  Christ obeyed the will of the Father all the way to the point of dying on the cross to pay the sin-debt for those who were His enemies.  On the night of His death His prayer to the Father was “not my will, but thine, be done.”

So here we are with the charge to “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”  What a charge!  Such a state of humility is impossible without the complete empowering of the Holy Spirit and the willingness to yield our own will to God and say “I’ll go where you want me to go…I’ll be what you want me to be…I’ll do what you want me to do.”


Credit to L.S. Chafer for the inspiration and the closing quote.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

And So All Israel Shall Be Saved!

They are scattered: behold them wandering on the face of the earth without a country of their own; they are a people who have been oppressed and downtrodden almost beyond belief: the hand of the heathen and the hand of the so-called Christian hath been very heavy upon them; they have been jeered and hooted at for ages, though they are in truth the very nobles of God, and their ancient lineage is like that of kings. Let us not, however, despair for them. Abraham, their father, was but a heathen when God called him out of a family that had worshipped the seraphs and made him to be a witness of the living and true God, and honored his faith with exceeding great reward.

Doubt not, then, that he can call Israel again from all her wanderings, cleanse her from all her profane traditions and her unbelief, and separate her unto himself to be a holy people, in whom once again his power shall be made known, and made known in such a way that they shall not speak of the ark of the Lord, or the redemption out of Egypt as the chief symbol of their national glory, or the grandest theme of their patriotic song, for a greater redemption and a greater manifestation of the Divine presence shall be in the midst of Israel than the wilderness of Sinai had ever known, or the mountains round about Jerusalem had ever witnessed. God grant it to them, and hasten the fulfillment of the promises in which he has made us to hope.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Bright Light in Deep Shades," delivered May 12, 1872