- He humbled himself. – Philippians 2:8
Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. Every day we need to learn from Him. Witness the Master taking a towel and washing His disciples’ feet! Follower of Christ, will you not humble yourself? Consider Him the Servant of servants, and surely you cannot be proud! This sentence sums up His life: “He humbled Himself.” Isn’t it true to say that on earth he was always stripping off first one robe of honor and then another until, naked, He was fastened to the cross and emptied Himself, pouring out His lifeblood, giving it up for all of us, until they laid Him penniless in a borrowed grave? Our dear Redeemer was brought low! How then can we be proud?
Stand at the foot of the cross and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed; see the crown of thorns; mark His scourged shoulders; see hands and feet given up to the rough iron, and His whole self to mockery and scorn; see the bitterness and the pains of inward grief, showing themselves in His outward frame; hear the beleaguered cry, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” And if you do not lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: If you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know Him.
You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God’s only Son. Think of that, and as Jesus stooped for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ’s amazing love for us has a greater tendency to humble us than even an awareness of our own guilt. May the Lord bring our thoughts to Calvary; then our position will no longer be that of the pompous man of pride, but we will take the humble place of one who loves much because he has been forgiven much.
Pride cannot live beneath the cross. Let us sit there and learn our lesson, and then rise and carry it into practice.
