Lately, I’ve been pondering the life of Jesus. Though the gospels tell us much about His time on earth, I don’t think we really get an accurate understanding of who His is without having some understanding of the Old Testament and the apostle’s writings as well.
Some of Paul’s words can be hard to grasp, but Philippians 2 gives us some keen insight into the character of Jesus that perhaps we miss without his succinct description. He says in chapter 2 verses 5-11:
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.
Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Emphasis mine.)
Let’s look back at those first verses. Though He was God…we know that right? Some deny it, but if you’re a believer you can’t deny Christ’s deity.
But even though He was God in every way, just as He was human in every way, He didn’t hang onto His equality with God. He didn’t cling to His rights. Rather, He gave up His divine privileges, took the humble position of a slave, and was born as a human being.
He gave up His divine privileges.
This is the reason He could tell His disciples that no one knows the day or hour of His second coming to set up His kingdom, not the angels in heaven or the Son—only the Father knows. It’s not that He couldn’t have known. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient—He can be everywhere, knows everything, and has all power.
Yet Jesus laid aside the privilege of knowing everything to become one of us.
When was the last time you were compelled to give up your right to know? Or to understand? Or to control the situation—not be caught off guard?
I think if we’re honest, we would all say that we want to know at least some things about the future. Why else would the journalists out there pursue the next big story? Why do they tell us it’s our right to know everything that is going on behind the scenes? Why is it inherent in human nature to need to know?
That’s what the disciples were asking Jesus—”When will these things take place and what will be the sign of your coming?”
They wanted the details, the signs to look for, and they wanted to know when it was going to happen. Wayne Stiles says that the disciples weren’t thinking about the future as we see it now. They still had their minds set on Jesus quickly setting up his earthly kingdom then and there. John wasn’t thinking he’d be writing Revelation. He was thinking about sitting to the right or left of Jesus in his kingdom. He/they wanted to know.
Sometimes I sure wish I knew the day or hour when something I am hoping for is going to happen, don’t you? We hate waiting! Just tell us when so we can be prepared and we’ll let it go until then. We can relax. Live our lives until the day gets close or the change is going to happen. But if they don’t tell us when…that can be really disconcerting.
It’s kind of an impatient attitude that needs to know what is going to happen in the future, don’t you think? If we know, then we don’t have to trust God. We already know. But I think God withholds knowledge from us in part because He’s teaching us to trust Him.
Even Jesus had to learn obedience and trust as a human, something He had no need to learn as God. But when He came to earth to be like us, he willingly gave up His rights, His goals, His plans, His equality on certain levels with His Father, and obeyed to the very point of death on a cross.
That’s a pretty amazing attitude. Not one I mimic very well. But the more I ponder that Jesus let it go—He laid aside His rights so He could offer me forgiveness and eternity with Him—the more I want His attitude.
Paul tells us that Jesus’ attitude is the one we need to have. Of course, none of us will attain it completely in this life. But we can aspire to be more like Jesus. The next time things don’t go our way and we want something to change, we could get upset about it. Or we could lay aside our right to have an answer to why things went the way they did and trust that God has even this under control. King David said, “The foundations of law and order have collapsed. What can the righteous do?” But the Lord is in his holy Temple; the Lord still rules from heaven.” Psalm 11:3-4 NLT
Because God is still in control of things we cannot see, we can humble ourselves and let God handle our life. We truly can. But we so often don’t because having that Christ-like attitude is impossible unless the Holy Spirit gives us the grace to do just that.
It’s a challenge to live the life Jesus calls us to live, because much of the Christian life, once we know Jesus, is us choosing to let Him shape our attitude. He will ask us to trade pride for humility, fear for trust, hate for love, misery for joy, self for surrender. That’s what Jesus did when He obeyed His Father from birth to resurrection. He asks the same attitude of us.
What attitude will you choose today?
~Selah
November 7, 2019
