Day 38—Tuesday, January 6

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:5-11

LORD OF ALL
Nearly eight years ago I was given a title for the first time in my professional life: president. When the congratulations came, I often feigned aw shucks humility. Unfortunately, it was a feigning I’d become good at. Even as I deflected conversations away from my accomplishment, I hoped that we would return to the subject of my new role.

I have to remind myself that this title could vaporize even faster than I acquired it. It’s a title I hold, not the person I am. The antidote to a self-fertilized ego is to learn to live a Philippians 2 life, having the same attitude as Jesus Christ, who took on the nature of a servant. He led not with a scepter and crown but with a towel and basin. May I not become amnesic about what John, Jesus’ forerunner, said about posture. “Christ must increase and I must decrease.” My proclivity is to say, “I must increase and then I think I’ll increase some more.” May I learn this big lesson in life to nurture a lessened me. May the proportions of Christ in me wax as my ego wanes.

“Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes, “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped…” I can’t get that Jesus attitude unless I surrender my self-centered Barry attitude. And I do that by reflecting on the Philippians 2 marks of living selflessly.  May these marks be tattooed with deep ink on my soul:

• Be like-minded
• Share in the same love
• Be one in spirit and purpose
• Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit
• In humility consider others better than myself
• And look not only to my own interests, but listen to the interests of others.

In the powerful and precious novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, she gets at this through her story’s speaker, the parson and dad. “When the Lord says you must ‘become as one of these little ones,’ I take Him to mean you must be stripped of all the accretions of smugness and pretense and triviality.”

God, strip my vain self of these.

The fact is, leaders get a lot of attention, most of it undeserved. Often I act like I don’t like it, but much of the time I do. The Philippians 2 way is to turn the attention away from me and to be present in others’ lives. That is a spirit that receives others, more than it wants to be received. One of my friends said that when he walks into a room, he doesn’t want to be thinking, “here I am.” He wants to be thinking, “there you are.”

This is the selflessness we are called to by Christ, the One who came as infant holy, infant lowly.

Dr. Barry Corey, President, Biola University