November 21, 2024 -- Philippians 2:3 --Wrapped Securely in Love
/3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Philippians 2:3 ESV
Selfish ambition can be translated “electioneering”. Doesn’t that put a right spin on things in today’s politically fractured world?! Conceit means empty pride. The irascible, World War II era Prime Minister of Great Britain once said of an opponent, “He is a humble man with much to be humble about”. Ouch. We live in a world of one-upmanship.
Believers know that is not how Jesus lived. Paul, who wrote this letter to the Philippians, will call on people to be humble in all their dealings towards others. Jesus, the only man, Who from conception to death, was perfect in all His ways. Jesus is the one man among all who ever lived, Who had the right to be proud of Himself, instead, He counted others better than Himself. He poured out His life in service to God, even as the people around Him rejected Him, mocked Him, persecuted Him, betrayed Him and ultimately killed Him.
He was not a chump. He was not misguided. So, how could He live that way? His heart, soul and mind were firmly fixed on the Father in heaven. His whole life’s focus was bringing glory to God and delighting in Him forever. When believers submit their lives to the care of God as He guides them, they will not be comparing themselves with others. Their life’s focus will be to please the audience of One, the Father in heaven. The believer’s on-going source of joy is to know the LORD Who emptied heaven of the great treasure, so that in Jesus Christ your hostility against the Father would be torn down, and then He gave the Spirit to secure you in His love.
When you read the Bible and are so secure, so wrapped in the blanket of the Father’s love, it is made easy to love others. The sneering of others cannot harm you, because you have love that is unstoppable. The success of others does not bother you, because you know the Father’s infinite love is overflowing rushing into every part of your life. The life of those who are achieving more doesn’t bother you because you are loved by the Father and content in who He made you to be. You are concerned about the lives of those who are suffering because His love motivates you to welcome others to the warmth of His great embrace.
In view of the fact that you are so totally loved, so securely embraced by the Father’s salvific love, you can then
hold up others as urgently in need of the Father’s love.
You can humbly serve them because God’s great love is the lack in their lives which leads them in their own torment and twisted lives to be your enemy, or your tormenter, or your rival, or from your before-Jesus-past -life victim, or your victimizer.
Live securely in the fact that when God’s justice was poured out on Jesus, your sins are wholly forgiven, and God’s love is what remains, you are aware that others have the need you had, the need to know their sins and all the sins committed against them are plunged beneath the healing flood of Jesus’s blood.
As forgiven people knowing God will judge the living and the dead at the end of time, and His punishment will last through-out eternity against all who don’t embrace Him now, you will want people to stop hurting in the way you were hurting. You want people to know a forgiveness so vast, so incomprehensible, that you are secure enough to love them, your worst enemy, doing so even if it costs you your comfort, your possessions, your freedom or your life, because you have every comfort in Jesus. Your greatest treasure is being Jesus’s own beloved possession, your great freedom is not found in things, but in the Person of Jesus, your life however long or short it is finds great meaning in Jesus Who has already now given you life eternal.
Being so loved, you pray for others with a dedicated fervor because have to holy desire that they would not, even a minute longer than necessary, be cold and unloved. That is too terrible to contemplate when the warmth of God’s love is so readily available.
When we stop comparing ourselves with others, but instead live our lives based on the unending, unfathomable treasure of knowing Jesus, then we can reach out to others from this foundation of security. We don’t need to compare ourselves to them. We who were formerly starved for love and acted out of electioneering, hollow pride, are now filled to overflowing with the endless supply of Jesus’s unbreakable love, the result is we can reach out to others in love. As once we were starved for Divine love but are now endlessly satisfied in love that the Spirit supplies from the wells of Jesus’s salvation unto the glory of the Father, we urgently call out, kindly invite, and patiently lead to Jesus every now love-starved person we meet.
Father in heaven, by the dynamic presence of Your Spirit living in me, help me to be so wrapped in the security of Jesus’s love that all my insecurity and all my empty pride are continually driven out of me. As one who is so richly, widely, securely and deeply wrapped in the saving love of Jesus Christ move me to reach out to others in love. Help me to count others as superior to myself in their urgent need for the life-saving love of Jesus. Amen.
https://youtu.be/u99cIiV2AHQ?si=Zxue1RCuuWEvCB_a Philippians 2:1-11
Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.
