By: Rev. Arnel C. Tan
“Your attitude should be the same that Christ had.”
Phil. 2:5 NLT
It’s all in the attitude displayed more than the skills acquired. It’s the attitude oiled in grace that stands out in the midst of this performance driven existence society. It’s the one who has a secured identity in Christ that is supernaturally able to be humble amidst praise and supernaturally resilient in times of difficulties. It’s not just an attitude that we acquire culturally it’s the attitude that is in Jesus!
If Jesus is our life then we spontaneously though sometimes painfully grow into becoming a living model of Christ like attitude. Paul reminded us of the humility of Jesus. He is never a doormat or a weakling he is humble. Christ is not insecure He modeled confidence in God. He is not vindictive he is just! Most of all the perfect model of grace and truth! Lest we forget He is Lord!
In this dog eat dog and rat eat rat world we who follow the Master must somehow reflect the Master’s influence in our live. I’m not talking of being Christ like on camera or on the air waves, no it’s having the attitude of Christ in the most unnoticed detail of life. Bringing it into the routine of living like washing pots, steaming its powerful influence into the core of fallen humanity. In a nutshell to be Christ like and to model it is to be unselfish.
How to do this is solely dependent on the grace of God. Others have tried to be Christ like in the efforts of the flesh, and as a result they got more pressures instead of peace. Self effort attempts produce results that may be noble to the human eye yet this has not deceived God. Surely it will not produce inner fulfillment or peace. It builds on to the pressure that is already there. The self effort results to self confidence and then the inevitable virus of self righteousness shows it’s ugly head. Traveling this road ends into the pit of self destruction.
Modeling Christ likeness starts with brokenness and then breakthrough. We live lives of grace as a consequence of the daily influence of Christ in us. Here we learn not to be demanding and also not to be demeaning. Remember what Paul said let this ATTITUDE be in you as it is in Christ! May God etched in our hearts ATTITUDE! Not high sounding words, deep thoughts, smart ideas or academic excellence. It’s really in those unguarded and unspoken moments that we clearly see what our attitudes look like.
"It’s really in those unguarded and unspoken moments that we clearly see what our attitudes look like."
ReplyDelete- Amen. Those little unguarded moments can really measure you up. And again, unless you are broken... you're not ready for a revival. Let's be humble enough and accept that were are not superman... we are living each day not because of our own strength, but by God's grace.
We should develop in ourselves a Christ-like attitude. We're not just representing ourselves to other people, we're also representing the church of God.
And without God's grace, we're just like a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, that's not even there.... so lost.
(^_^)