Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: With the Transfiguration, the story of Jesus turns a corner; He is headed for home, moving now towards the cross and his ultimate glorification. We have begun Act III of a four-act drama. He still has a considerable amount of teaching to accomplish, but we see a subtle difference. Instead of revolutionary generalizations, the teachings become longer and more specific. In Chapter 18, which we start today, Christ instructs us in seven different areas of personal relationships. Item Number One on the list is humility. He tells the disciples not only that the humblest will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, but also, that unless they have such humility, they will not enter the kingdom of heaven at all! Jesus playing as a boy Jesus playing as a boy. Many of Christ’s teachings are contrary to human nature — for our nature is to fall into sin — and none of them moreso than humility. By nature, we look not to the servant, but to the leader. We spend our lives, also, trying to become the leader; we want to “climb the ladder of success.” We want the respect of other people. We want power, we want money, we want to be the one who calls the shots. Human beings, like other advanced animal species, instinctively create a pecking order. As Robinson Jeffers put it, in his novel The Manticore, we want to turn life into a circus, with ourselves riding the biggest elephant! And this describes the line we must cross to follow Christ: to be willing to give up our animal instincts and adopt, as the rule of our lives, their exact opposite. Christ will lead by example: no doubt the most powerful man on earth, he allows the authorities to beat him and nail him to hang, in utter humiliation, on a cross, his execution a painful public spectacle. Stephen, the first martyr, as he was being bashed to death by stones wielded by members of the Jewish priesthood, did nothing except pray that God would forgive them. (Acts 7:54-60) Oil painting of penitent girl-right The Penitent Rotari, ca. 1750 The powerful humility of Christ and the early Christians is a clarion call to each of us, to hold up beside the petty pridefulness of our everyday life. Christ uses a child as a metaphor for humility, and the greatest humility a child has is his openness to being taught, for the pride of ideas is the last and most destructive element of pride we develop. Humility can be relearned, but we must recognize the need for humility, and there is a word for recognition of this need: Repentance. We must allow the Holy Spirit to transform us, even in our most basic and fundamental concepts. Christ teaches us, nay, commands us, to become a child, a tabula rasa to his holy word. This is what He is talking about when He says, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3)