Day 15 – March 21
What did Jesus Christ give up for you?
Today, I invite you to pull out your Bible or an online Bible and read Philippians 2:1-12.
I cherish this passage. It repeatedly speaks to me of Christ’s great love for me.
We follow Jesus, so we might benefit from knowing His mind and thinking. I find this challenge in Philippians encouraging and confronting. We are to have the SAME mindset at Jesus. We CAN have the same mindset as Jesus. Our thinking will lead to our actions.
But do we want the mind of Christ? On Good Friday, we see Jesus embrace the most painful of actions.
I also struggle with Philippians 2:1-12. It shines a bright light on our shortcomings as human followers of Christ. As a woman and a mother, I want to be served – not serve (good luck to me). I don’t want to die to myself, give up my privilege, power, or advantage, or relinquish my rights – rights tied to the intrinsic personal worth of humans. Yet Jesus modeled this way – servanthood and sacrifice that included pain and death – death to self and physical death.
I’d invite you to personalize this passage before seeing how you might practice or apply it. Jesus embraced this mindset for you. He gave up his privilege, power and advantage for you. He divested himself of everything he was owed as God - for you. He became your servant. He willingly became fully human like you – experiencing pain, suffering, and death. He gave up heaven, trading it for earth.
There is no one who has done this much for us. And Jesus is and will be celebrated for this servanthood and sacrifice.
So, let’s remember Him:
Philippians 2:5-8
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Day 16 – March 22
How could you increase your feeling of gratitude for Christ?
Sunday – March 23
How could you increase your expression of thanks to Christ?
