Philippians - Embracing Joy by Mark BattersonSample

In 1942, an Austrian psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl was arrested by the Nazis. He spent three years in four different concentration camps, including the infamous Auschwitz. Frankl was stripped of his possessions, his clothes, even his name. He was reduced to a number—prisoner 119,104. His mother and father, as well as his wife, died in those concentration camps. 

The year after his liberation, Viktor Frankl wrote a book titled Man’s Search For Meaning. A survey conducted by the Library of Congress ranks it as one of the ten most influential books of all-time. It has impacted tens of millions of people, myself included. In that book, Frankl shares the secret of his survival: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” 

C.S. Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” There is no place for pride in a Christ follower. Pride is thinking of yourself more highly than you ought. But please hear me, there is no place for false humility either. False humility is thinking of yourself as anything less than who God says you are. You are the image of God. You are the apple of God’s eye. You are God’s workmanship. To think of yourself as anything less than who you are in Christ is to devalue the work of Christ on the cross! 

Here’s a scary thought. You can be doing the will of God, and God can oppose it. I know that sounds heretical, sounds illogical. But God opposes the proud. If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, it doesn’t count in the kingdom of God. God cannot favor it the way He wants to. Why? Because you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Now let me flip that script. If you stay humble and stay hungry, there is nothing God cannot do in you or through you. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every man is my superior in some way, in that I learn of them.” I love that approach path to other people, and I think that’s what the Apostle Paul is advocating. It’s putting the same valuation on others that Christ puts on us. You are worth the cross of the Christ. So is the person who doesn’t look like you, think like you, or vote like you. 

One more thing that has helped me immeasurably. Everybody ought to have a few quotes that they quote a lot. This is one of mine. Oswald Chambers said, “Let God be as original with others as He was with you.” 

Check your attitude. If you need to make a change, ask the Father for help. He created you for a reason. Be the person God create you to be. Allow those in your life to be all that God created them to be too. You are your best self when you reflect Jesus. His is the attitude you want to present to a world that needs Him so desperately.

Respond

Describe a time when you needed an attitude check.

How did you make the adjustment? 

Prayer 

Lord, thank You for loving me, listening to me, and never giving up on me. May I reflect your grace and mercy to someone today!