Thanks much. Getting around slowly today.
REGARDING OTHERS AS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OURSELVES
Would sure go a long way toward increasing humility and trashing pride.
I think it has been good that folks mangled by poor early parenting have also learned to balance that with LOVING OTHERS AS ONE LOVES ONE'S SELF. DYSFUNCTIONALLY feeling that one's self is more worthless than slug ______ doesn't help one's spirituality in most respects.
I'm not one to change "such a worm as I" in the hymn to "such a man as I" as my Baptist boss did. I think there is a spiritual truth that is very real, humbling and fitting to "such a worm as I."
But we are ALSO MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE FOR HIS PLEASURE. And He delights in us and we are the apple of His eye. And we do well to accept that and stand in that place--in humility.
And, considering others as to be preferred ahead of us is CHRISTLIKE. And being conformed to His image is what we are to be about. And that's more than in glib religious platitudes. It's nitty gritty real.
I think it helps to really construe preferring one another ahead of ourselves as doing so literally to Jesus, Himself as He indicated. . . . unto the least of these, you do it unto me.
That's REAL. There's a SPIRITUAL, EXISTENTIAL, ETERNAL REALITY there that we miss out on and lose the treasure of when we glibly pass by without living that verse out. Christ gave us an instruction, an invidation--in a sense--a command. But we treat it as a minor, lower level option when we are perfect, rested, all the bills are paid and we have nothing better to do. WRONG!
That is to be our mode of living 24/7.
And THEN the fruit flows accordingly--through our lives from our Lord and into our lives as well.
Thanks much for your labor of love on this thread and others.
My mom had real self-esteem issues.
We need to remember 2 things:
We are not worthy, but we are invited anyway, so we are worth something in the eyes of God — he gives us value.
But then, too, we see how Jesus modelled behavior, so we need not to be puffed up, either:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant.
For love, even God the Son was willing to empty himself, to put the needs of all of us ahead of his high place in Heaven, to reach out and save us.
We are of worth because God loves us. But all of us are of worth because God loves us, not just one or two. So how should we behave? Thankful, because of that love. And in thankful gratitude, we should try our best to stop seeing ourself as top dog, and honor each other, submitting the way Christ submitted, out of love and thankfulness.
MUCH, MUCH easier said than done. A whole life’s work!