“He emptied Himself?” (Philippians 2:7). The title is a paradox, an impossibility, but then so is the incarnation, God made flesh. Here, it’s God emptying Himself, laying aside all that is rightfully His. God Most High “making Himself of no reputation?” Also a mystery, but one worth some meditation.
How important it is for us to “empty ourselves” so that God can use us. We are meant to be vessels of God’s love and of His Holy Spirit. If I’m full of myself, seems like there’s not a lot of room for God in there. Of course, God can use anyone. He can even speak through a jackass (and He did). Branches on a tree don’t do a thing to produce fruit. They are vessels of a life-giving sap, and the fruit just pops out. If you clog them up with, say, a beetle, the tree dies.
In the Garden, Jesus emptied Himself when He said to the Father, “Not My will, but Yours be done.” “Denying self” sounds like something that prevents you from being your authentic self, but in doing it, I become the person I was created to be, the real me without the distortion of the sin nature.
A glimpse of the inscrutable God, the unexplainable God, God the Spirit become flesh, the just God dying as a criminal, the famous God choosing obscurity, doing the impossible to Himself, the inconceivable for us.
God Glimpses 