Low and Lifted Up

Today we see many people who promote themselves, trample on others' feelings, shoving others out of the way to get to the front of the line. Kinda like Black Friday at an electronics store. We see many who manipulate others to get their way behind the backs of innocent people. Any CEOs from Wall Street around? Some gossip and slander the good names and reputations of others, making themselves look good and the innocent persons bad. I don't want to dis lawyers, but isn't this one of their key tactics? This is personified on today's reality shows like The Apprentice, Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Bachelor, Big Brother, and the whole genre. Some cheat their way to the top. Steroids anybody? Some kill their way to the top like former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro, current North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il, just to name a few of dozens who have done so. This is the "ME" generation we're living in. We are a society of narcissists. It's all about "ME" being high and lifted up, speeding "MY" way to prominence while bludgeoning over others. It used to be divas were women but we now have male versions too. It's a crazy self absorbed world we live in. These warped and self centered attitudes have become apparent in church through the years. All of a sudden everything has become about us and how comfortable we are and not about humility and lifting others up, even if we are uncomfortable and out side of our comfort zone. God help us!

Jesus didn't give us the example of a comfortable, me first life. He humbled Himself and became man. He washed the feet of His disciples. He gave up His will for the will of His Father, God. Nah, I don't see anything comfortable in being born in a manger where animals lived. In growing up and living in Nazareth, a low income village, a town where nobody wanted to be known for living in. A town where no one thought anything good could come from. After all He was God who became man. He could have chosen to live in Jerusalem instead, but then, how could he be acquainted with every type of person in every type of circumstance? I don't think it was very easy and comfortable knowing one of your inner core of friends was going to betray you and rob the till. How comfortable could it be when people ridiculed Him and cursed Him? It surely wasn't comfortable and easy to be whipped, beaten, punched, blindfolded, stripped naked, mocked, have your beard plucked from your face, forced to carry a cross in public, bleeding, skin bare to the bone, tripping and falling, thrown down and nailed to a cross and publicly humiliated. Yeah, that sounds pretty safe and comfortable to me.

He did it all for love. Even though He knew many would neglect Him. Many would make promises to Him and break them a thousand times over. He did it out of love even though many would choose not to believe in Him but let's them make that choice on their own. Yeah sounds pretty selfish to me.

Nah it all sounds to me like the way He taught was all about humbling ourselves in service to Him and others through actions. It's not really about us and how comfortable we feel. It's not about getting all the glory for ourselves. But if we follow His lead, He will lift us up in honor. Wouldn't it be a great experience to be lifted up and exalted by the One who loves us so much and created all things! What an awesome reality for those who follow through!

1 Peter 5:6

"So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor." -New Living Translation

We misunderstand the word humility. If we didn't get it yet by the example of Jesus, let's take a look at how E.M. Bounds defines humility, "In humility there is the total absence of pride, and it is at the very farthest distance from anything like self-conceit. There is no self-praise in humility. Rather it has the disposition to praise others. "In honor preferring one another." It is not given to self-exaltation. Humility does not love the uppermost seats and aspire to the high places. It is willing to take the lowliest seat and prefers those places where it will be unnoticed."

In other words it is not today's mantra of being high and lifted up, which is what God is, so in essence today's mantras are putting man in the place reserved only for God. Our mantra for ourselves should be "Low and Lifted Up by God," just like Jesus.

I'll end with this powerful statement also from E.M. Bounds, "God puts a great price on humility of heart."