By: Pastor Jimmy Oentoro

(Founder & Chairman of IFGF GISI)

In our walk of life, we often have to face the road “less” or even perhaps “never” taken. This new path may frighten us. The inconveniences experienced may make us doubtful in our walk with God. But we know that we don’t have to be afraid because He who started a good work in us will carry it out to completion till the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6). God uses the road less taken to bring us to a higher level in our lives.

We will be able to walk this kind of road if the center of our lives is Christ Himself. During his imprisonment, Paul wrote a short text to the congregation in Philippi. It went like this:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:Who, being in very nature God,did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himselfby becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:1-8)

Through this letter, Paul teaches us two things:

1. Pride must be removed from our lives

Proverbs 11:2 says, “When pride comes then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” While living in a world that teaches us to always possess better and bigger things than others, we as children of God must realize that we are actually nothing. Otherwise, the things of above cannot dwell in our lives.

2. Learn to always put others above ourselves & learn to submit

Again, the world teaches the opposite. But dare we live without receiving recognition from others? Dare we willingly submit to one another, putting ourselves below others and obeying them?

We want to learn from a political figure in Myanmar, Ang Suu Kyi. She is a female warrior of her time in Myanmar, who by her humility and submission to the government in power at the time, led her people in a non-violent struggle for democracy & human rights. Never retreating, she persisted forward doing what was the purpose of her life. She, in the end, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

As God’s children, we need to have an encounter with Jesus Christ, so that we can “empty” ourselves, become nothing, and are able to run forward & achieve the Godly purpose of our lives.