Spurgeon: June PM
* 06/03/PM
"He humbled Himself."
--Philippians 2:8
Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. We need
daily to learn of Him. See the Master taking a towel and washing
His disciples' feet! Follower of Christ, wilt thou not humble
thyself? See Him as the Servant of servants, and surely thou
canst not be proud! Is not this sentence the compendium of His
biography, "He humbled Himself"? Was He not on earth always
stripping off first one robe of honour and then another, till,
naked, He was fastened to the cross, and there did He not empty
out His inmost self, pouring out His life-blood, giving up for
all of us, till they laid Him penniless in a borrowed grave? How
low was our dear Redeemer brought! How then can we be proud?
Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by
which you have been cleansed; see the thorn-crown; mark His
scourged shoulders, still gushing with encrimsoned rills; see
hands and feet given up to the rough iron, and His whole self to
mockery and scorn; see the bitterness, and the pangs, and the
throes of inward grief, showing themselves in His outward frame;
hear the thrilling shriek, "My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?" And if you do not lie prostrate on the ground
before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not
humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know Him. You were
so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God's
only begotten. Think of that, and as Jesus stooped for you, bow
yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ's amazing
love to us has a greater tendency to humble us than even a
consciousness of our own guilt. May the Lord bring us in
contemplation to Calvary, then our position will no longer be
that of the pompous man of pride, but we shall take the humble
place of one who loves much because much has been forgiven him.
Pride cannot live beneath the cross. Let us sit there and learn
our lesson, and then rise and carry it into practice.