Wednesday, March 23, 2011

March 23, 2011 … Jesus’ Humble Identification with Sinners

Passage of the Day: Philippians 2: 7 - 8 - 7 … but [Jesus] made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!

My Journal for Today: Though Jesus walked among mankind in those three years of ministry where people, especially His chosen Disciples, followed Him around, witnessing miracle after miracle, most of these people, who were looking for a Messiah, did not really recognize Christ’s Lordship. As I said, even His closest followers, the twelve Disciples, couldn’t or wouldn’t accept Jesus’ claim to being THE Son of God, the Second Person of the Godhead … even though He did many things they witnessed that only God could do (see all of John 6).

In Christ’s humility and manhood, Jesus, except for His sinlessness (see Heb. 4: 15 cited below) was fully identified with man in His incarnation and walk on this earth. And that’s why His being 100% man actually added something, i.e., perfect empathy, to His omniscience, rather than His being reduced by His emptying of His majesty in the kenosis of becoming “human likeness.” [see again Phil. 2: 6-7] So, now, we look back on THE LORD in His ascension, coronation, and re-glorification, especially after the reality of this resurrection with awe; well, at least I do! Now, we know we have a risen Lord, still sinless as the God-Man, Who could become our High Priest, fully able to have perfected, infinite empathy with our plight and weakness as mankind. He is everything declared by Heb. 4: 15

SCRIPTURE: Heb. 4: 15 … we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

As we’ve been reviewing this month, Christ’s humility is our great, yes, even perfect, model for the pursuit of the attitude God’s Spirit, through Paul, exhorted us to have in Phil. 2: 5 – an attitude just like Jesus! We often think that it would have been an advantage to have been there and witnessed Christ’s deity on display, seeing all those miracles first hand. But you know, as I alluded above, the Disciples saw all of that; and yet, they still had doubts and fears … fears that led even their strongman, Peter, “the rock,” to cringe in fear and even deny to his Lord.

Well, today we actually have one advantage over those who walked with Jesus and saw Him first hand. We have the codified history – inspired by God Himself – in the collated and cannonized Bible. We have the very real and historically documented resurrection, which only a few were able to see and touch the resurrected Lord in those days of the cross. Yes, men like the eleven remaining Disciples, and others, had the opportunity, to see the resurrected Christ first hand, even touch Him as did Thomas [read John 20]. But anyone who delves into the truths of the New Testament and reads the true account of Jesus can have, as MacArthur recounts, “… heart-felt assurance that He (Christ) was perfectly man and perfectly God.”

My Prayer Today: To know You, as my Lord, even as imperfectly as I do, dear Jesus, is my hope of salvation. Amen

No comments: