Dave’s Monday Blast – February 12, 2024

Continuing from last week with our discussion of the virtue of humility; humility is a quality essential for our very salvation, and certainly required for living a life of service to our God who saved us, and to His church with whom we partner to advance the Kingdom of God. To this truth, Pastor Charles Stanley wrote: “Our earthly limitations make it difficult to comprehend what Jesus left behind when He came to earth. By examining Christ’s attitude, we learn what true humility looks like and how we, too, can learn to walk humbly with God.”

Stanley breaks this down for us with four “humble attitudes” of Jesus: Let’s unpack the first this week. 

1. Jesus let go of what was rightfully His. Philippians 2:7 declares “He emptied Himself…” Hmmm…what does that mean? What did He do when He came to earth? As a member of the Trinity, the Son has the same nature, attributes, and power as the Father and the Holy Spirit. Yet He didn’t cling to His equality with them or to His rights of godhood. Rather, He left the blissful perfection of heaven to come as the Savior of humankind.

Stanley continues: “Jesus never surrendered His divinity. Rather, He accepted the limitations of humanity, veiled His majesty and glory, and voluntarily limited the use of His divine privileges and prerogatives (Philippians 2:6). Our Savior chose to live in obedience to the Father’s will with complete reliance on the Spirit’s power.”

I realize that our finite minds can not understand that Jesus could be fully God and fully man; however, this in no way needs to create a tension or crisis of faith. Pastor Greg shared with me a very interesting podcast that speaks to this issue powerfully. The podcast is from Sean McDowell. He is interviewing a self-defined Militant, Communist (Atheist), thoroughly indoctrinated to hate Christians. He became a follower of Jesus by examining scientific evidence and personal experiences to completely change his life. His name is Sy Garte, Ph.D. The podcast is a full hour, but worth a listen: however, the primary point to this discussion is discovered at the 54:00 mark. (Click here to watch)

Next week we will continue to enjoy the teachings of Pastor Charles Stanley as he further unpacks this critical virtue of humility as exemplified by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.