DECEMBER 23 PHILIPPIANS 2:1–18
Our hope in this life and the one to come rests on the humiliation and exaltation of the Son.
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t’s important to confess that we love being exalted and dislike being humbled. None of us enjoys moments when we are proven to be less than others, and we revel in situations where we are elevated. Acclaim, respect, appreciation, power, control, and position are seductive idols for us all. We hate to be embarrassed
or shown to be weak. Being humbled is hard for us. Philippians 2 makes it clear that Jesus is not like us:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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. (Phil. 2:5–11) As the apostle Paul calls the Philippian believers to live a life of humility, he encourages them to have the mind of Christ. Jesus, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in divine majesty, sov- ereignty, holiness, and power, willingly humbled himself. Paul assures us that Jesus wasn’t humbled, but rather willingly humbled himself. What did his willing humiliation look like?
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