In this experience I was invited to a banqueting table
beautifully covered in a sparking white cloth. The table was laden with choice
selections of the finest fruits and meats. Delicacies of every kind abounded.
However, one dish in particular was highlighted. It was a rough hewn wooden platter
containing a single loaf of bread. This simple loaf contained all the nutrition
needed for a strong body. It was foundational to a life of health and
wholeness. This loaf was called the “bread of humility” and was of great
importance to the Lord.
What is humility? Humility is the complete awareness of our
utter dependence on God as the Creator and Sustainer of everything that ever
was, is, and will be. It is the recognition that the gifts and abilities we
have are given to us by God and His expectation of our working these specific
abilities to make them flourish, to more adequately serve our brother and
sister.
When we recognize who we are - whether carpenter, doctor,
politician, farmer, lawyer, housewife, or apostle - we realize these are only
functions, neither more or less important than the other, which God has called
us to in order to glorify Him and build up one another.
Imagine if every Christian was confident of their specific
ability and talent, recognizing it as God’s present to them, and exercising
their gifts to the best of their ability in order to serve one another. Gone
would be envy and selfish ambition. Gone would be mans silly pecking order.
Gone would be the honoring of only the “chosen few.’ Gone would be ruinous
flattery. Instead each of us would be fully and joyfully taken with God’s
calling, knowing He has good works ordained for us to do that only we can do.
We would look at our brothers and sisters in the same light and do what we are
able to help them fulfill their call.
Let’s willingly eat the bread of humility that we may stand
as a fully functioning body with arms linked in order to see this world touched
with the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2: 1-11 is our guide.
If you have
any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love,
if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make
my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit
and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in
humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only
to your own interests, but also to the interest of others.
Your attitude
should be the same as that of Jesus Christ:
Who,
being in very nature God,
did not consider
equality with God something to be grasped,
but 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.
Therefore God
exalted him to the highest place
And gave him the
name that is above every name,
That at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow
In heaven and on
earth and under the earth,
And that every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
