Daily Devotion for December 16, 2024

 Devotion:

For an audio version of this devotion, click here.

Read Philippians 2:1-7 .

Read Philippians 2:1-7 (New Revised Standard Version) 1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. We are doing something different this week. Each day, we will read this same passage from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. A different translation or paraphrase will be used for each day’s reading of the passage, and we are encouraged to see how each of these versions is different. Paul begins this passage with several “if” questions, to which the answer is an implied, “Yes, of course. I find encouragement in Christ, consolation in his love, etc.” Then Paul calls us to make his joy complete by working together in a spirit of complete unselfishness. Can you imagine looking to the interests of others instead of to your own interests? Radical! Then he shifts to make the powerful point of how completely unselfish Jesus was in giving up the form of God and coming to be among us in the form of a human being. These verses and those immediately following are key points of “Christology,” the study of the nature of Christ. We are called to live out the humility of Christ, who came to show us the true nature of God.

Personal Worship Option:

Pray with me: Gracious God, when I begin to listen to the world and look to my own interests above those of others, remind me of your Son and help me to follow his example, to repent, and try more earnestly to seek humility. Amen!