Humility: God’s Plan for Reconciliation

As I was pondering Yeshua’s path to death and all that came before that, one word rang in my mind loud and clear: humility. Yet the word, as we know it, hardly does justice to what Yeshua displayed.

“But [He] made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:7-8

This is God Himself in the flesh, being crucified as a criminal by those He created, in order to pay their penalty for them. That’s humility–and more, a concept for which we have no frame of reference.

What was He hoping to achieve? The answer was another astonishing realization: A choice. For all his suffering, humiliation, pain and sacrifice, it was only to offer mankind a choice, an option for eternal life. It’s an invitation He gave us the free will to either accept or reject. It is completely optional. He does not require or force us to accept His gift. He did it all, so we would simply have a choice.

Have you ever given a gift that you had to sacrifice to give, either monetarily, physically, emotionally or all of the above? We can only hope the recipient will appreciate all that went into it and appropriately use the gift as it was intended. But imagine that the person rejects the gift, maybe doubts your story about what you did to be able to give it to them. Imagine they ridicule you, or even twist the story or just completely ignore it. Would you continue to offer it to them?

This is what God does. Not only did He humble Himself to become flesh and die at the hands of man just to provide a new way to eternal life with Himself, but when mankind rejects, doubts, ridicules, twists or ignores it, He keeps offering us His sacrificial gift with only love and mercy.

It’s at this point, I recognize it will take a lifetime to grasp what Yeshua did in His three years of ministry and His death. To follow in His footsteps of humility and sacrificial giving is something we can only achieve with the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. Having the picture of it firmly in mind is the first step.

Humility like God has shown requires that we make ourselves “nothing,” laying down our need to be in control, our agenda and motives, our ambitions, our power to do things our own way, our comforts and our rights in order to truly hear and align with His direction and purposes. It requires us to take on the nature of a servant, and consider others before ourselves.

This sort of humility brings about reconciliation and harmony. It is the means by which God’s plan for the world is accomplished. It’s because Yeshua was willing to follow God’s direction humbly and sacrificially that God exalted Him to His right hand and billions of people have accepted His gift and chosen eternal life. Only supernatural humility and generosity provided by the Holy Spirit can accomplish this, but being able to participate in a plan like this is certainly an honor. It’s when we humble ourselves before others and God, that He can truly work His plan of reconciliation in our lives and others’; His supernatural purposes can be accomplished.

Read Isaiah 53

Articles about Yeshua’s sacrifice
Articles about Obedience
Articles about Humility