How many of us understand the principle of being humble. I love watching period movies such as Downton Abbey that was so popular in the United Kingdom. The story showed the lives of the servants and the lords and ladies of the house in turn as well as the interaction between the servants and the aristocracy. It clearly showed how the servants needed to be humble when in the presence of their masters and how they were told off by the butler if they stepped out of line.
Recently we started to watch a documentary called Turn Back Time where three modern families lived in eras in the past. They were chosen for either of the three classes; upper middle class, middle class and working class based on how their ancestors lived around the turn of the nineteenth century. The irony was that the family chosen for the workers class environment was a self-made upper middleclass family and it was interesting how they had to humble themselves to serve the upper middleclass in the documentary.
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death —even death on a cross!
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Philippians 2:6-11).
How literally are we prepared to humble ourselves before the Lord? Imagine for a moment with me heaven before Jesus came to earth. Jesus was worshiped and served by the angels on a daily basis and He ruled and reigned. Then one day the Father announced that Jesus was going to visit earth and live there for a while as an ordinary peasant. Can you picture the angels’ astonishment that their Lord would humble himself to the level that he would serve mankind? Don’t make any mistake; they knew exactly how corrupt and proud people were, for they had to serve them.
Jesus reduced himself from being the King of kings to bending down to His knees to wash His disciples’ feet, to kneeling down to spit in the soil so He could heal the blind man’s eyes, to sleeping rough for He said “foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” (Matthew 8:20).
How much are we prepared to humble ourselves before Him? It is easy to say that we humble ourselves, but are we prepared to be it. In the documentary we spoke about it was showed how the family, who were actually upper middleclass, had to swallow their pride to serve the pretended upper middleclass. Can you feel the resistance in your pride when you humble yourself before the Lord? How much would it take for you to do it when the Lord expects of you to serve someone you consider beneath you, to have a loving conversation with a simpleminded person in your congregation, to go the extra mile, which you may consider senseless, with someone and so on?
The passage in Philippians 2:10 above states that every knee should bow before Jesus. What would people think of us if we literally go to our knees in worship to the Lord during a church service? The angels and those who are already with the Lord do it at this very moment and they don’t wonder what others might think. What would the Lord think of you if you bow your knee literally before Him in spite of what people might think?
Pride stands between us and revival. “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted” Matthew 23:12 says. If all Christians could manage to have a relationship of humble worship with the Lord, regardless of what others may say, i.e. if we all lay on our faces before God in worship, then we are one step closer to revival.
Lord, please help me to humbly worship you.
Thank you Lord that your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the purpose for which you sent it.
Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.
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