Freedom For Today

“Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

Have you ever acted one way when a leader was watching you and then changed your behavior once they were gone? The Philippians get you, and Paul is reminding them to keep following the teachings they learned about how to follow Jesus even though he is no longer watching over them. The word “important” catches me — there is a sense of urgency in the Philippians’ efforts to stay true to Jesus’ mission.

The next words are “work hard.” Immediately I return to a rule-based mindset, and in fact wonder if I have gotten things all wrong in the other devotionals I have written. There is a clear sense here that hard work is required, and obedience is essential. If I am going for hard work and obedience, shouldn’t I pull out my list of “good Christian” rules and make sure I do them all every day? Then I’ll know whether I’m on track, right?

Before we go taking on the slavery of the law (again), let’s keep reading: “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” Wait, who is doing the work? Is it me or God? I was just supposed to work hard a minute ago, but now it says God is working in me. It is here that we must cling to what we know about the Spirit — he does the work in your heart. He changes your desires. He leads to you to right places at the right times.

Salvation changes you. And not in the ways that we think of. Remember, we remain in a battle and we all have our fights and crosses to bear. Life does not get easier when you are saved. In fact, you might just be signing up for the fight of your life. The Spirit will give you the desires for the things of his kingdom and the power to please him. And today your simple heart that is pursuing him by exploring his word is a great delight to him.

“Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

This little song we’ve been singing along with Paul in verses 5-11 comes to a close here. It’s easy to notice the flowery language (heaven, earth, under the earth, every tongue, glory to the Father!). It’s a dramatic finish to a beautiful poetic description of Jesus’ path of freedom when he humbled himself and died on the cross.

Today’s verses start with a “therefore” — in other words, “because of everything we just talked about…” So we could say, “Because of Jesus’ total humility and surrender of power, God elevated him to the place of highest honor.” Interesting. Jesus obtained ultimate power because he didn’t make power a thing. What is God doing in your life right now? Take a moment and just sit with him on that. Think about your hardest battle — the one you feel like you are losing. Do you believe that God could make something good come of it? Do you think he could restore you?

Jesus released power and control, and in doing so he found freedom, victory and elevated status. Is there one thing you could release today in order to allow God to lift you up in honor when the time is right? Obedience may be hard sometimes, and excruciating at other times, but it will always lead you into a position of God lifting you up in honor at the right moment. And one day you will rule alongside Jesus.

“Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”

As we discussed in yesterday’s post, these verses are helping us understand what it means to be like Jesus. He considered his God-status unimportant and his attitude was unaltered by it. Today’s verses tell us what he did instead of lording power over people. It is here that we will find some great wisdom for how we should live. Knowing what not to do is important, but knowing what to do gives us a picture of what freedom could truly look like.

So how did Jesus surrender his right to God-power while on earth? Let’s make a handy step-by-step guide for how to follow Jesus:

Step 1: Humble yourself

Step 2: Become a slave

Step 3: Obey God when it costs you everything

Step 4: Be willing to die

When I was in Sunday school at five years old and was presented with the choice of being happy with God forever in heaven or burning in hell with Satan, I naturally raised my hand at the heaven option. No where in there were these steps made clear until much, much later. When I look at this list, I am immediately discouraged and I think, “Wow, being a Christian is kind of an awful plan…” But because I know that the Spirit brings total freedom, I have to start with that and read these steps with that mindset. How does humility set me free? Doesn’t becoming a slave make me a captive (which last I checked was the opposite of free)? How can I obey God in the really hard moments? And um, did you say die? How exactly does that make me free?

Humility is simply embracing your smallness. Weight is lifted from you when you realize his power is the only kind that is real. His power works best in you when you serve others willingly — this kind of attitude is like a kick in the gut to Satan who thought he had you all wrapped up in yourself for good. Obedience to God becomes the only logical choice as you watch his power work through you when you do things his way. Even if that required death, it really wouldn’t matter because Satan can’t steal you back. And that is exactly how Jesus found his freedom.

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.”

We are coming up on some of my favorite verses in the Bible. I cannot tell you how many times a day I quote Philippians 2:5 to myself when I need an attitude adjustment. If nothing else, take that with you today and replace your negative thinking about yourself or your circumstances with, “Have the same attitude as Jesus Christ.”

Our formatting will miss something that I want to point out before we move on. My amazing husband, Joshua, taught on this a while ago and it really made a neat connection for me. These verses (5-11) are written like a poem or song lyrics. If you look them up in your print Bible or on BibleGateway.com, you will see how it is laid out. Paul seems to be quoting a song here, and some have suggested it could have been a song that Paul and Silas sang together when in prison just before Paul was sent to house arrest in Rome (from which he wrote this letter to the Philippians). Imagine that these verses are the very song that kept Paul and Silas praising Jesus and imitating him while in chains for the Gospel!

Verse 5, in addition to being a great sentence to repeat to yourself throughout your day, really sets us up for the question, “What does it mean to be like Jesus?” Verse 6 is the first answer to that question: he didn’t try to make himself important.

Jesus was by his very nature God — the full nature of God participating in and through a fully human man. He knew who he was, and yet he did not try to cling to this. Notice that he would have been well within his rights to play the God-card a whole lot more often, but he didn’t. Why? He didn’t think his status as equal with God as something he needed to hang on to. And yet here we are, clinging to our salary, job title, ministry position or community status like we will evaporate if we go unnoticed.

When you are secure in who God made you to be, status and title and power just aren’t that important. You don’t cling to them — not because you are working so hard to give them up but because you genuinely see those things as unimportant. What Jesus did cling to was his connection with the Father and his mission. Don’t focus on all that you need to let go of to be more like Jesus. Instead, cling to the things he did — the Father and the mission. Everything else will fade to the background over time.

“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.”

These verses are perhaps the most counter-cultural verses that Americans could read in the Bible. Before you read too fast and gloss over the depth of meaning here, let’s take a minute to soak in each piece of this verse.

We’ll start with re-writing these verses, but instead of conveying the same message we’ll write the opposite. These are the American values we are told in commercials and movies every day:

1. Look out for number one — if you don’t take what you need no one is going to give it to you.

2. Make sure you “wow” everybody — if you don’t stand out in this world you’ll go unnoticed.

3. Keep up with the Joneses. If your neighbor has something, make sure you have it too.

4. Protect your own interests. In fact, in business and as a country we need to prioritize our own profits instead of giving away all our stuff.

Isn’t that the American way? We have to perform, impress, keep up and protect ourselves. But what are these verses saying? Don’t be selfish, don’t impress, put others first, walk in total humility, genuinely care about others. In order to do all these things, we have to start from a place of security. God is not talking about beating ourselves up and self-deprecating here (“Oh, I already think of everyone as better than me because I’m so awful…”). Rather, we are unselfish when we are able to let go of ourselves and freely give to others generously.

We are able to be humble when we are properly aligned with God and we don’t have anything to prove to anybody. Sit in his presence day after day until you are so secure in his love for you that selflessness, humility, and care for others simply flows out of your understanding of God and yourself. Don’t try harder, sit in the presence of God longer and more deeply.