One of the key aspects to humility is knowing your identity and being secure in it. If you look at the message version of philippians 2:5-8,

"Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion."

If you look at the bold part, it says that Jesus knew that He had equal status with God the Father, that Jesus Himself is eternity and possessed the same glory as God the Father. However, Jesus was so secured in His status/identity or role that He did not have to "cling to the advantages of the status of being God". Jesus was assured in His status as God and He knows that even if He veiled His glory by appearing in the form of human, setting aside any privileges of God and even dying a criminal's death. Jesus knew that by veiling His deity would not change who He truly is and that is Jesus is Lord.

What we can learn and apply from this is to ask ourselves: How secure are we in our identity as a child of God and also who God has called has to be? If we truly understand who we are in God's eyes and that our identity will never change, we will be able to imitate Christ's humility. We can find ourselves sacrificing ourselves, giving up any rights or privileges and being selfless even in the midst of mockery, being misunderstood or mistreated.

Christ's humility was one that was laid as low as possible, whereby He emptied Himself, laying aside His glory just for our salvation, being obedient to the worst and lowest form of death punishment which is the cross.

I was reading this passage yest and was really struck by the extent of Christ's humility and what true humility means. we need to start off by knowing not just in our mind but in our hearts that "we are God's beloved creation nothing will change this; His love and grace is sufficient for us ; absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of Christ; we are made for God; He is our everlasting".

There are times when we take pride in the things we do, things we say, how we look, how we dress, how we are like, how we talk, our strengths and abilities and many times these are the things that we have allowed to define us. But these are things that do not last and are fleeting. The only thing that stands till the end is the unique role and relationship, and being secured in eternity that God has called us to.

"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength" (Isa 30:15)

 

Signing off at 11:01 AM