No Reputation
Theme of the Week: Living the Opposite Way
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
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Key Bible Verses: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. (Philippians 2:5-7, NIV) Dig Deeper: Philippians 2:1-11
When I was a student at Eastern College, Dr. David Black took it upon himself to teach me the way of Jesus. Dr. Black was president of Eastern, and it wasn't in his job description to disciple an undergrad. But every few weeks he would meet me for breakfast. He reminded me almost every time we met that Jesus was a man "of no reputation" (Phil. 2:7, KJV). Make this your constant prayer, Dr. Black would say.
What does it mean to be a man of no reputation? He never answered the question for me, but he lodged it firmly in the back of my mind.
One summer I came back to school early for a student chaplaincy program. To get to know the incoming students, we volunteered to help them move into the dorms. Lugging boxes up the stairs, I bumped into a middle-aged man in shorts and a dirty T-shirt. He was breathing heavily and let out a grunt. I peered over my boxes and saw the man's face—it was Dr. Black.
When I wonder what it means to be a man of no reputation, the image that comes to mind is my college president carrying boxes in a [sweat]-soaked T-shirt, meeting new students as their servant before he was introduced to them as their president.
—Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in God's Economy
My Response: Someone in my life who consistently demonstrates Christ-like humility is …
Thought to Apply: In the kingdom of God, service is not a stepping-stone to nobility: it is nobility, the only kind of nobility that is recognized.—T.W. Manson (theologian)
Adapted from God's Economy (Zondervan, 2009) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher. May not be reproduced.
Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Father in heaven, forgive me for the times I have bought into the values that govern this world; help me to commit myself to values that are eternal.
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