Breathe In, Breathe Out…
While thinking on how we should act one to another, I was stretched to another level while reading this passage:
If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.Philippians 2:1-4(MSG)
It’s clear here – if Christ is doing anything in our life than we owe it to love each other, to be "deep-spirited friends". The ways of the world are not to be a part of the life of a believer – no pushing and shoving to get to the top; no manipulation to gain your own advantage; no thinking so deep on your problems that you can’t help your brother or sister. It’s not hard to figure out how to do it, because we saw it in Jesus:
5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.Philippians 2;5-8 (MSG)
If we follow the pathway that Jesus walked, not looking for status because we’ve been around so long; or even because we’re so anointed; then we will walk this earth’s terrain as a simple human being, with no special privileges, as a servant, obedient to our Father. While we don’t look for a crucifixion, (there is only mediator between God and man(1Timothy 2:4), yet we never know what will be required of us in this life – we stand ready to say as Paul says, "to live is Christ, to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21 KJV)
We live, to live again – knowing that our reward is far greater than anything in this life. We live for Christ, and in Christ, so that others can see that they too can have life and life more abundantly through our resurrected Savior:
14-16 Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. Philippians 2:14-16 (MSG)
We’re living breathing epistles of the grace and glory of our God.
Maria