Phil. 2:5-7 – Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Once your eyes begin to open to Christ and His kingdom you begin to appreciate the things you took for granted. The glory and the humility of Christ is like that. I remember when I began to see the majesty and the greatness of our God. I was on an evangelism trip between Sacramento and San Francisco and was driving through the coastal mountains. I was struck by the beauty and power revealed in creation, His majesty was all around me. I remember reading Isaiah 40 as we were driving and was struck by this verse, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scale and the hills in a balance?” I was suddenly aware of His greatness.
Other times I was awed by His humility. How did this great God become a human? How did He suffer and die such an unjust death? What would make Him stop and take notice of this insignificant corner of His creation. His humility contrasted with His grandeur is overwhelming. Here is how Jonathan Edwards describes this phenomenon.
“We see by manifold instances, what a tendency an high station has in men, to make them to be of quite a contrary disposition. If one worm be a little exalted above another, by having more dust, or a bigger dunghill, how much does he make of himself! What a distance does he keep from those that are below him! And a little condescension is what he expects should be made much of, and greatly acknowledged. Christ condescends to wash our feet; but how would great men (or rather the bigger worms), account themselves debased by acts of far less condescension!”
The dung hill thing always makes me laugh. The point is that all our accomplishments are simply a pile of dung. The shocking thing is that people are proud of their pile of #%@&. ‘My pile is bigger than your pile.’
So let’s bask in His greatness and stand amazed at His humility. He is the lion and the lamb and He has prevailed for us.