Day 26
Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
To help you understand this verse, I encourage you to read Philippians 2: 1-24
Our study here is all part of the letter written by Paul to the church in Philippi. Philippi was the first European Church established by Paul. Paul was very pleased with the accomplishments and growth of this church. Remember Paul was writing this whole letter to the church from his jail cell in Rome.
The passage that we are focusing on here relates to humility. We are told not to be selfish or greedy. As Jesus lived on this earth he gave us countless examples in His Word, and in His daily life, showing us what it means to be humble.
Think of the quote of Jesus in Matthew 11:29 “Wear my yoke for it fits perfectly and let me teach you, for I am gentle and humble, and you shall find rest for your souls.”
An outstanding example of Jesus showing humility was his washing the feet of the disciples. This was considered to be too lowly of a task to even expect of servants. How is that for an example of humility? John 13:5
Thinking of others as better than you is not easy. Much of the time I think this is because we tend to compare ourselves to the wrong people. If we would focus more on people that we respect, and are generally successful people it may help us. Just think of accomplishments that people around us have been able to develop for us. Think of the fields of medicine, science, electronics, space, and on and on. I don’t know about you, but we would not have most of the progress we have seen in these areas, if it were up to me to develop these areas. We can also think of the many people that devote their lives to many causes that offer little as far as rewards by most of our standards. So you see if we compare ourselves with people like that we will find it much easier to admit that lots of people are better than ourselves. (However, I must remind you even if we compare our lives with a person considered to be a low life, don’t forget we are all sinners. So I really should not count myself better than anyone else.)
Now to help us further understand humility lets take a look at what Jesus commands us to do and not do in our daily lives. It doesn’t take long to realize that we do not do all the right things. We do many things that we should not do and we don’t do many things that we should do. As Luther would tell us we have sins of commission and sins of omission every day. Many people think that we could follow the simple rule of asking ourselves in every situation “What would Jesus do?” I do believe that can help us make at least some better decisions.
Comparing ourselves to Jesus can always make us more humble. Jesus gave us the greatest example of humility ever by His death on the cross. Jesus, the Son of God, came down to live on this earth as human, just like you and me. Except, he was the only human to live a life without sin. He too was tempted many times, even by the devil himself, but he overcame these temptations so that he could save us. He then volunteered to give up his life dying as a common criminal on the cross, for the sins of the whole world. Now that’s not being selfish! That is not thinking of yourself as being better than others! That is being humble! That’s why we can rejoice with thanksgiving for the forgiveness we all need to be saved. That salvation is a free gift from Jesus. We certainly did not earn it.
Dear heavenly Father, help us to be humble as we go about our daily lives realizing that we are not the best at anything we do. WE are not the best citizens, not the best leaders, not the most intelligent, not the most ambitious. In other words we are sinners, no better than anyone else. Yet, we can rejoice for the free gift of forgiveness and salvation given to us by our Savior Jesus Christ. We thank you Jesus! Teach us to be humble and grateful. Help us to really try to live a life that shows our Christianity, Amen.
