Evening, June 3
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Philippians 2:8
"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.