THE MODEL OF HUMILITY

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”  (Philippians 2:5-8 NLT)

Jesus was humble. Perhaps this was His most outstanding characteristic. Imagine if you were God -- equal with the Father, sharing glory with Him, having every privilege of being God -- and then you became a human and laid aside all those privileges. Imagine becoming the servant of all and being God hidden in the obscurity of humanity.

His humility was expressed most when He became a man and died on the cross. He never insisted on His rights and privileges to be honored, understood or viewed rightly, but He emptied Himself of His reputation. He was content to be seen as ordinary and did not seek esteem. Think about embracing a life of weakness, poverty, shame, homelessness, rejection, and pain. We realize this when we study Isaiah 53 and see Jesus as the suffering servant. Jesus had lowliness of heart.

It’s easy for us to say we’re humble and broken until the real test comes, and we are put in a humbling position. We wonder, “Why aren’t we recognized?” It doesn’t feel good. We react and don’t like it. We want to be important and are often so proud. But Jesus became nothing during His life on earth, and He gives us His example so that we may follow in His steps. In fact, the only character trait that He proclaimed about Himself was His humility. Jesus didn’t put on humility to just accomplish a task on earth. Humility is part of His eternal nature. As we understand His humility it should produce admiration, inspiration, and confidence in us. In His lowliness of heart we find rest for our souls.

-- Adapted from Debbie Przybylski in an article entitled “How Jesus Modeled Humility”


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