Thursday, October 2

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014

Isaiah 66:1–24

Philippians 3:4b–21

Psalm 74:1–23

Proverbs 24:15,16

 

 

“This is the one I esteem:

                he who is humble and contrite in spirit,

                and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2b)

 

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, become like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7–11)

 

 

Turning his back on the flesh- and law-oriented “righteousness” that he had once pursued, Paul states his commitment to radical humility.  Please note that this picture extends and personalizes the call to servanthood that Paul presented in Philippians 2:1–11.

 

How may we practically strive to become “humble and contrite in spirit”?  In popular speech, “humility” often carries the connotation of thinking lowly of ourselves (through self-deprecation).  These efforts may quickly enter the category of diminishing God’s creativeness in us, heading towards self-loathing.  That type of thinking drives us towards depression and spiritual and emotional bankruptcy.

 

Biblically, humility involves thinking rightly about ourselves and about God.  John Newton, the reformed slave trader and author of “Amazing Grace,” explained:  “Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly:  I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.”  By trusting in Christ, we may become part of God’s redeemed family, adopted as sons and sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.  Yet, we continue to struggle against sin.  Only through God’s intervening grace may we grow in our capacity to serve and honor God.  While we acknowledge our sinfulness and shortcomings, we must, in the same glance, look at the all-sufficiency of Christ’s finished work on the cross.  As Isaiah 53:5 explains, “But he was pierced for our transgressions,/ he was crushed for our iniquities;/ the punishment that brought us peace was on him,/ and by his wounds we are healed.”

 

Paul eagerly desires to become a servant with this kind of humility.  Our country’s many blessings may have caused us to “expect” God’s favor as we follow Him, but Paul’s path seems much rockier and more daunting.  For Paul, his life-goal revolves around “the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”  He may have surrendered worldly ways, but he anticipates a rich inheritance in the resurrection.

 

Paul’s surrender echoes Jesus’s teaching:  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Mark 8:34b–37)  Or, similarly, that great truth from Jim Elliott, an American missionary who died bringing the Gospel to the Auca people of Ecuador, whom he loved:  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

 

I fall very short of this ideal.  I recognize more and more that my clinging to this world stems from making God and His promises of eternal life too small relative to the temporal blessings of this world.

 

 

Lord God, thank You for bringing Jesus to the world to become a great Savior.  We acknowledge that we are desperately in need of Your grace and provision in our lives.  Without You, we are nothing.  Increase our vision for Your eternal purposes.  Help us to become unshackled from the preoccupations of this world and to fix our hearts on knowing You and making You known.  In Jesus’s Name, amen.

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