“We become taller when we bow.”
— G.K. Chesterton
“He must increase, I must decrease.”
— John the Baptist
POWER UNDER CONTROL
I spent Easter this year reflecting on something different than I usually do. We often think of Christ’s loving sacrifice, His brutal suffering, and His victorious resurrection, and rightly so.
But this year, my heart was fixed on something quieter, yet no less staggering: His humility.
The restraint He carried. The resolve to do the Father’s will and not His own. The ability to access the full power of deity, and yet willfully hold it back for the sake of humanity.
He could have silenced the mockers. He could have called down fire. He could have avoided the pain.
But He didn’t.
He chose obedience. He chose the path of surrender. And in doing so, He showed us a different kind of strength. The kind that doesn't grasp for power but lays it down for love.
Jesus wasn’t practicing humility to gain influence, to posture for favor, or to elevate His platform.
He wasn’t calculating the optics of obedience.
He was fully surrendered.
This wasn’t humility as strategy. This was humility in its purest form: complete submission to the will of the Father.
No angle. No performance. Just self-emptying love.
THE WORLD'S OBSESSION WITH UPWARD MOBILITY
It is striking because so much of the world we live in is about power.
Leveraging time, gifts, and influence all for personal gain.
Everywhere we look, we see the same message: ascend.
Climb the corporate ladder.
Build your platform.
Increase your influence.
Secure your legacy.
Even within Christian circles, ambition is often baptized in spiritual language. Leaders chase significance, ministries grow obsessed with reach, and believers quietly measure their worth by their effectiveness.
But in the economy of the Father, the way up is often down.
This is the great paradox of the Kingdom.
The highest throne belongs to the One who emptied Himself. The King of kings took the lowest place, washing feet, bearing shame, and surrendering to death. And He calls us to do the same.
THE DESCENT OF CHRIST
Paul lays out this radical vision in Philippians 2:5-11, a passage I seek to remind myself of daily. It reads:
"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
To understand the weight of these words, we must look at the region of Philippi itself. This was a city steeped in the Roman imperial cult, where the idea of power and exaltation dominated the cultural imagination.
At the heart of this was the Heroon of Philip II, a massive shrine honoring the father of Alexander the Great. The citizens of Philippi, many of whom were Roman veterans, would have been intimately familiar with this monument. It was a symbol of glory, the exaltation of a ruler who seized power through conquest.
In Roman thinking, divinity was something to be grasped, a prize seized through military dominance and political cunning. Philip II and Alexander had ascended to power through war and self-exaltation, securing their names in history. Their heroon in Philippi stood as a testament to the Roman way: the way up was to be taken by force.
But Paul turns this entire worldview upside down.
You see, Phillip was fully man, yet unlike the depiction of Jesus in Philippians 2, he saw equality with God as something to be grasped and sought to achieve the status of deity within his lifetime. This ultimately led to his demise.
Now Paul, writing to the people of Philippi declares that Jesus, the One who was God, who was fully deity, did not grasp at divine status the way Rome’s rulers did. Instead, He emptied Himself. The King of kings did not ascend through conquest, He descended into servanthood.
He took the lowest place.
Choosing: humiliation over honor, obedience over dominance, death over power.
Paul’s message was scandalous. To a people accustomed to exalting the strong, he pointed to a Savior who was exalted because He made Himself nothing.
Where Philip and Alexander sought to be enthroned in grandeur, Jesus was enthroned on a cross.
Where Rome built monuments to power, the Church would build its faith upon the humility of Christ.
It was through His willing humiliation that God exalted Him.
This is the way of the Kingdom—the way up is down.
THE HIDDEN GLORY OF HUMILITY
This is often where we get it wrong. We think humility is simply a means to an end. That if we lower ourselves, God will lift us up in a way that looks impressive.
But Christ’s humility was not a strategy for success, it was the very nature of His being.
To follow Christ is to reject self-exaltation, to take the lowest place not for personal gain but because it is the way of love.
It looks like forgiving when we could justify our resentment.
It looks like serving when no one notices.
It looks like pouring out our lives with no promise of recognition.
This is not weakness.
This is strength under control.
True kingship is not about exalting yourself…it’s about emptying yourself.
True greatness is not about power…it’s about humility.
True influence is not about conquest…it’s about self-giving love.
The humility of Christ was not passivity. It was strength aligned with the Father’s will.
A CALL TO IMITATION
So what does it mean for us to have the mind of Christ?
It may mean we choose the lower path.
The path of obscurity.
The path of service.
The path of obedience, even when it costs us.
We must become small so that Christ may be great in us.
The world will rarely applaud this kind of life. But heaven does.
A FINAL CHARGE
Everyone wants to be called a servant, but no one wants to be treated like one.
Humility is as easy to talk about as it is difficult to live out.
But this is the way of Christ.
Here’s the good news: when we take the lowest place, we find that Christ is already there.
May we walk this road with joy.
May we embrace the narrow way, knowing that in the end, it leads us home.
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