“When you love you wish to do things
for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A
Farewell to Arms
Christ Jesus, though he was in the
form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted
him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those 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.
Jesus did what He did out of obedience
to the Father and love for us!
If we are to follow Jesus, we need to
be willing to empty ourselves of the desire to be the center of everything, in
other words, to be the "God" of our own lives. We need to empty
ourselves of looking at others and at all of creation in terms of what we can
get from them. In the words of Alcoholics Anonymous, we need to be
relieved "of the bondage of self."
As we follow Jesus, and become more
for others and less for self, we find we cannot isolate ourselves from the
world, as tempting as that is today. God did not "give his only Son"
so that we would turn our backs on the world that He loves so much, as soon as
we believed in Jesus! The world, in such pain and distress, needs what has been
given to us in Jesus Christ!
Obviously, we can't do this on our
own. I know I need grace in order to get outside of myself, and let go of being
only concerned for myself. But the great thing is that God's grace in Jesus
Christ is always available! God's grace is poured out on us continually!
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