To Encourage You

Mark 9:35 “And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, ‘If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’”

Matthew 23:12 “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

One of the prevailing themes of the Scriptures is that one must first go down to go up.  It’s such a paradox.  Wouldn’t it seem that if you want to aspire to something great you just begin where you are and climb higher, to strive for greatness?  That’s the focus of the world – striving for something better, higher, more expensive, more glamorous, more prestigious.  It’s the idea that we deserve or at least we should want more than we now have – a common message in so many of the advertisements we see.  It’s also the theme of the world’s major religions.  Do you want to go to heaven?  Then be a good person, be the best you can be, strive, work, that sort of thing. 

However, the message of the Bible is the opposite.  For anyone to enter heaven, and thus “go up,” he or she must always humble themselves first.  The first step is always an acknowledgement that we are unfit to be exalted, to be raised up, to be made acceptable in the sight of God.  We must admit that we are not good people.  Our righteousness is as filthy rags – and there is no one good – and in particular – that means me.  We must confess that fact, admit it, and humble ourselves before a holy God. It is only when we humble ourselves before the Lord that He can lift us up (James 4:10). 

Jesus set that example for us all, although He had no sin or flaw in his character.  Of Christ we are told that “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11).  And we are told that we should have this same mind in us, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). 

Humility before exaltation, going down to go up, being last to be first – it’s all the same message: the only way anyone will ever go up in God’s kingdom is to go down in their own.