"The Triumph of Humility"

    In the conflict between aggression and humility, waged at Calvary, the former seemingly won a skirmish.  The latter, however, won the battle, and ultimately,the war, as the Lord Jesus Christ trounced His foes under nail-scarred feet.

    "Ye killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead" (Acts 3:15).

    It always works this way.  The world, the devil, and the flesh use their weapons against those who walk in Christ's humility (Galatians 4:29).  God allows His enemies temporary victories for the purpose of revealing the triumph of His Son in greater measure and degree.  Indeed, we likely face battles just now in which much seems lost because our Heavenly Father led us down the path of meekness and lowliness.  Perhaps we remained quiet when we could have spoken to plead our cause.  Or we responded in grace to an offender rather than in kind.  Or we chose to trust God rather than aggressively seek to forge our way into a position or place that might have benefited our circumstance, but which would have damaged our heart.  The way of humility, motivated and enabled by our Lord, led to loss and difficulty.  If we find ourselves in such circumstance, let us not deny the challenge of our enemies' momentary gains.  However, let us also remember the truth of our Savior's ultimate victory:   

     "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted a sheep for the slaughter.  Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Romans 8:35-37).

     Troubled.  Distressed.  Persecuted.  Starved.  Stripped.  Imperiled.  Slashed.  God's trusting sons and daughters in Christ experience all (whether literally or figuratively).  We also experience His triumph as we walk in the faith and humility whereby the Lord Jesus won the battle of the ages.  Aggression threw all it could muster at humility - and lost.  The appearance of its victory gave way to the fact of its crushing defeat.  Christ is risen from the dead, and by His victory and life, believers experience our Lord and His way as we walk with Him in His way.  "The servant is not greater than his Lord; if they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you" (John 15:20).

    We must expect our Heavenly Father to orchestrate and allow in our lives many contests between aggression and humility.  A difficult, but blessed path lies before us as we walk in the nature and character of He who declared, "I am meek and lowly in heart" (Matthew 11:29).   Remembering the glorious triumph of humility won by our Savior at Calvary and the empty tomb enables us to wage our own battle in the confidence of His victory revealed yet again in us. 

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.  And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father."
(Philippians 2:5-11)

Weekly Memory Verse
   Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.
(Romans 12:19)