Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 09/14/2010)

You Have To Follow The Example...

Philippians 2:1-11 (New Living Translation)

¹ Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? ² Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. ³ Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. ⁵ You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. ⁶ Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. ⁷ 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, ⁸ he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This weekend my daughter did some baking for my sister’s sorority meeting. When I was talking to the president of Zeta Phi Beta Incorporated, Chi Omicron Zeta Chapter, as she was eating one of the cookies my daughter had prepared she was commenting on how skillful she was in the kitchen and how her culinary talents were in advance of her years, and then she asked where she learned to cook like that. I smiled and replied “from me.” My daughter has been in the kitchen with me, by my side for many of year. I believe it has been since around the age of five. She would come and sit on the floor and watch me cook. Then she advanced to helping chop and mix things, and now she is doing it for herself. She is more skillful than I am, in many ways. Not because she did anything different than I did when I was learning and advancing, but she submitted herself to being taught and to learning the ways that would make her not just a good cook but an extraordinary cook. She not only watched, but, yield to authority and being corrected and then she began to walk it out on her own and try to make the skills acquired better than her predecessor, which was me.

Why is it that we are willing to pay the price to be better at things except in our walk with the Lord. We will study for a promotion, work all sorts of overtime, do any little crazy thing our boss asks of us, but if God was to do the same, we have a hard time acquiescing to His will. We want to be the leader, but we don’t want to follow. We want our salvation and our elevation in the Kingdom to come on our terms, without much pain, much muss, or fuss. But you cannot get where Christ has gotten to without following the pattern and the example that He has modeled before us. We want to lead without first serving; we want to preach without first being preached to, we want to teach without first being taught. Honor does not come without humility, and submission. You can put yourself in places that you have not gone through the teaching process to get to and you will quickly find that you do not have the background and the training to keep you there. Christ modeled the things we are supposed to do to become like him and to accomplish those greater works, that is written about, but we want to try to skirt the system to get there, without having to follow the example. My daughter would never have been able to obtain her skill level in the kitchen had she not spent many long days and nights with me cooking and chopping and doing the grunt work, before I was able to release things into her hands and now she was able to move beyond my abilities. We must first have the heart of our Savior and submit ourselves, humble ourselves, learn, serve and then go forth, to become Christ like or a Christian. Christianity is far from being about elevation and being the big dog on campus. It is about service, humility and the exaltation of others before us.

To be the example you have to submit to an example. To become used of God you have to first surrender to God and yield to His will and His way. You have to learn what you are supposed to do and how you are supposed to act from your elder brother Jesus. It is through our ability to follow the example that we become the example. It is about letting our light so shine before men that our Father in Heaven may be glorified! If we can just remember that it is not about us, but it is about Jesus, and about God getting the glory out of our lives we will go beyond, what we thought we ever could and we would become, like the example that has gone before us! Make your Father and your older brother proud, yield, surrender, learn and serve so that God can get the Glory out of your life!