Tale of Two Crowns

Consider today’s passage. It starts with, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.”

It could have left it there, and the point would have been made – we are to serve others. We aren’t to get all puffed up and prideful. We are to be humble and serve the needs of others rather than our own.

But God’s Word does not leave it there. In verse 5, we read: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Have the same attitude as Jesus, who humbled himself and died on the cross so that we can be forgiven of our sins. Jesus who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”

It is one thing for a person to serve the needs and desires of someone whom we judge to be worth it or can repay the favor. It is another to fully give ourselves for the sake of someone who does not deserve it. But that is exactly what Jesus did for us: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

This is what we are called to do and be: to have the same mind as the one who saved us, and to have the same attitude of servitude as Jesus. This is not just for those we think are worthy, but for the world that God so loved that he gave his one and only son.