The Way Up Is Downनमूना

Who We Look To

Jesus, our God in the flesh and creation’s royalty, lived at the bottom of society’s barrel and grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He who was independent of any mortal not only willingly chose to depend on his mother and father but also the graciousness of other human beings.

During his earthly ministry, he relied on the financial and practical support of women and others to sustain his ministry. When he was thirsty, he sat down and asked the woman at the well for a drink. The Samaritan woman, someone on the lowest rungs of her society, refreshed Jesus by giving him a drink of water. Jesus didn’t discriminate in his dependence.

Jesus lived unwelcomed and uninvited and misunderstood. Mistreated, despised, and degraded. John tells us, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” How crushing and exhausting not to be received by those who are supposed to be your people.

And yet in his volitional poverty during his life and death on earth, we see he learned humility—to completely depend on God and also on others. He had to. After all, he suffered because of what he gave up to become fully human (while being fully God), he continues to wash the feet of his friends and enemies alike. Jesus, the God of the universe, rich as he is in every conceivable and inconceivable manner, washes our feet. Even now, no place is too low for Jesus to stoop to serve others. Behold the humility of God.

Our sustenance can never come from people’s high or low opinions of us, from what we have or don’t have, or from our social status. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” Jesus reminds us.

Where are you getting your “bread” from?

Prayer:

God, thank you for coming to save the ones who rejected you. I want to depend on you. Your opinion is the only one that matters. Teach me to lean on you and live like Jesus did. Amen.