Christian Living
In the first blog post we stated that the real identity of a person is revealed in not always what we see them do or the way they act but in the way they think which they eventually voice out. The Bible tells us that ‘out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks‘ (Matthew 12:34).
Then we started looking at how the Mind of Christ is.
No.1 we said Christ had a mind of great reverence for the Father. Reverence here meaning to yield or submit to the Father’s Will by simply answering the question; ‘what would God have me do‘?
Reference scripture is Philippians 2:5;
“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 dies a selfless, obedient death-and the worst kind of death -a crucifixion.”
The next thing we see about the Mind of Christ from our reference scripture is this;
‘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.’
‘Didn’t think so much of Himself‘ can mean- humility or selflessness or both.
Question: If Jesus didn’t think so much of Himself, then who was He concerned about?
Answer: Others, the world, the Father’s will….sounds like selflessness to me.
Selflessness is defined as;
-“the quality of caring more about what other people need and want than about what you yourself need and want” (Cambridge Dictionary).
Humility means ‘the quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance’.
Notice that humility doesn’t mean the quality of thinking of oneself as unimportant, rather it refers to a state where someone of great importance chooses to pay little or no attention to the things defining their status.
Arnold (my hubby) tells me I ‘worry’ too much about everything, even when it’s clearly not my ‘worry’ 🙂 and I pray that I will {upgrade} to consciously put the wants and needs of others above mine always.
Somebody said something to me some years ago, it was the first time I was hearing the second part of it -‘Grace, you look kind of unfriendly from far, but you actually have no airs’ Yes, I regularly get the feedback of having an unfriendly strict look from a distance {Lord Jesus help me! 🙂 } but that always changes on close contact. Strict/firm? Yes. Unfriendly? Try me 🙂
Question: Grace, are you implying that you’re someone of great importance? Yes! I am a Child of the Most High God, an heir of His Kingdom, that’s super important 🙂
So, ‘not having airs‘ was coming to me for the first time. And indeed, I am completely free from any sort of complex defined by a personal worth or possession. There is really nothing in this world I consider luxurious or invaluable {Heavenly things are heavenly}, this can be a problem sometimes when people think they should gain some respect because of their wealth- I may not notice….. Yes, I love beautiful lovely things and places (and The Lord blesses me with them always) but many times, I find that people keep defining my status from their personal evaluations 🙂 Surprises me how they do it!
Humility is not about portraying a depressed self or form but a choice to pay little or no attention to the things defining one’s perceived status, Selflessness is putting others above self.
Help us Lord.
The Mind of Christ is a mind of humility, selflessness and great reverence for The Father.
