He Could Have, But Didn't

“He Could Have, But Didn’t”

By Zach Wood

Philippians 2:5-7 NIV

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.

I want you all to ponder something for a few moments.  Imagine if you were promoted in your job to the highest position possible and given authority over everyone you used to work with.  How would that change the way you feel about everyone who works beneath you?  How would that change the way you feel about yourself?  There would be a feeling of celebration for sure!  We would all probably be filled with many emotions at the thought of being in charge of all the employees.

With this new position of authority, there also may be some temptations to take advantage of the people who work under you.  Would you treat them as you would want to be treated or do you think you’d be tempted to boss them around and make them do everything you want?  Don’t answer that too fast.  Even if you couldn’t imagine yourself like that, strange things can happen if we were ever given the highest position in a company and the complete authority to tell people to do what we want and how we want it done.

I hope that if we were all given this situation, that we would choose to do our best to make employees feel respected and appreciated, but never to take the advantage of bossing them around in a mean way.  Many people in high positions do just this because it gives them a feeling of power and boosts their ego big time!

Think about Jesus for a few moments in this way.  We know He never would have done that to people, but He had all authority from God.  He could have really taken advantage of the authority His Father gave Him and treated people terrible.  Imagine how that would have changed how we look at the Bible??  He did NOT use this authority and power in His position of Son of God to treat people wrong.  He did just the opposite!  He became a servant.  Why?  So that people would see just how the character of God really is and what love truly looks like in serving others.

I find it amazing that Jesus could have abused His authority, but that’s not what He was sent to do.  He was sent to love and serve and die for us.  He could have chosen to treat us as slaves and boss us around, but instead He loved us.  He loved us enough He went to the Cross to prove it. 

He was the epitome of love and servanthood.