When we look at modern Christian literature in book stores or on line it is easy to be discouraged by what we see. There have been so many books and magazine articles written from a supposedly Christian perspective that tell us how to gain self-esteem, whether that be for others or ourselves. We have been taught by the supposed “experts” on human behavior that low self-esteem is at the root of all our emotional and relational problems. But there is not a single verse in the entire Bible that tells us that we need to build our self-esteem. There are many verses that tell us we need to lower our view of ourselves and grow in humility (the biblical word for humility means “lowliness of mind”). How many recent books or articles have you read on how to lower your self-esteem and grow in humility? Yet what does the word of God tell us?
(Philippians 2:1-7)…..Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
Paul here tells us what that mind was in Christ: He emptied Himself; He took the form of a servant; He humbled Himself, even to the death of the cross. It is this mind that was in Christ, the deep humility that gave up His life to the very death, that is to be the spirit that animates us. It is this that we shall prove and enjoy the blessed fellowship of His cross. Paul said, “If there is any comfort in Christ,” – the Comforter coming to reveal His real presence in them – “if any fellowship of the Spirit,” – it was in this power of the Spirit that they were to partake of the crucified Christ, and the manifest His disposition in the fellowship of the cross of their lives.
As the strove to do this, they would feel the need I have a deeper insight into their real oneness with Christ. They would learn to appreciate the truth that they had been crucified with Christ, that their “old man” had been crucified, and that they had died to sin in Christ death and were now living to God in His life. They would learn to know what it meant that the crucified Christ lived in them, and that they had crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. It was because the crucified Jesus lived in them that they could live crucified to the world.
And so they would gradually enter more deeply into the meaning and the power of their high calling to live as those who were dead to sin and the world and self. Each in his own measure would bear about in his life the marks of the cross, with its sentence of death on the flesh, with its hating of the self-life and its entire denial of self, with it’s growing conformity to the crucified Redeemer in His deep humility and entire surrender of His will to the life of God.
Andrew Murray
Look, it is no easy school and no hurried learning that can be applied here in this school of the cross. But it will lead to a deeper apprehension and a higher appreciation of the redemption of the cross through the personal experience of the fellowship of the cross. Have a blessed day walking with the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.