Philippians 2:5-8
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
You MUST have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had??? Take the position of a slave???
Sometimes choosing to follow Christ seems like more trouble than it is worth. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to just do life my way.
Except...
I've done life my way before. I've made decisions solely based on my wants and desires and things never seem to go quite as planned. Instead, things tend to take a turn for the worse and I end up down in some valley wondering how God let me get there.
We as people tend to wait until we are in absolute need of a savior before looking up to God and asking for help. Look at the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. Over and over, God bailed them out and they would devote themselves fully to him -- for a little while. They would forget, or overlook, all that he had done for them and after a while they would end up in trouble again, and either mad at God for letting bad things happen to them, or begging God to save them.
We aren't so different than those Israelites. When we first met God, we wanted to follow him with all our hearts, minds, and body. We gave up our old life, made massive changes in how we lived and all was good. But slowly, temptation crept back in and turned into sin, the snowball started rolling down the hill, and before we knew it, our lives looked very similar to where we were before.
How does that happen? When do we lose the joy and the comfort that comes from having a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior?
Integrating our faith into our everyday life is not an easy task. It takes work to move our faith beyond Sunday. We have to navigate how we deal with our friends and co-workers. We have to navigate our families and our old habits. We have to make choices around who we continue to hang out with and what activities we allow to stay a part of our life. These are decisions that we have to make on our own through prayer and council. These aren't hard and fast rules that the church can hand you.
The more we can put ourselves in a position to serve God, the better our chances of navigating this world. The more we focus on serving others without any expectations of getting something in return, the greater amounts of joy we will feel. The more we get into fellowship with other people who are serving God, the less alone we will feel.
When we begin to understand the magnitude of what Jesus did for us on the cross -- when we really stop and think about how he made the ultimate sacrifice and gave up his life so that we have the ability to live our lives in victory, we have no other choice than to spread that love to the rest of this world. When we recognize that the same power that brought Jesus back from the dead lives within us, it should propel us to action.
So can we have the same attitude as Christ Jesus had? Can we take the position of slave?
Absolutely.
We can do this because we are filled with love.
1 John 3:18-19
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.
