Now THAT is humility!

Philippians 2:8  "And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!"

There is humility, and then there is real humility.  Just like there are different classes and levels in baseball, there are the "minor leagues" of humility and there are the "major leagues" of humility.  The levels of humility often can't be placed properly on a scale unless compared side by side with one another.  God coming to earth to live and dwell among us as a fully-human man could rightfully be deemed as "major league" humility until you compare it to His other acts of humility.  Not only did He come to live among us, but He humbled Himself to go through human, physical death.

It is important to remember that God has dominion over everything.  He is not naturally subject to the physical and natural laws of earth and physical life.  He didn't have to die, He chose to die.  We, on the other hand, have no option.  We will experience physical death whether that is our choice or not.  God had the choice, and chose to endure the same death we will one day endure.

But He didn't stop there.  The means of death He chose to endure showed "major league" humility.  There was no more painful and humiliating way to die than to be crucified on a cross.  This type of death was reserved for common criminals and the dregs of society.  Wouldn't it have been easy for the Creator of the Universe and of life itself to say, "OK, I'll die a physical death, but I'm not going down like that!" 

But He did.  And if there was a way of heaping more suffering and disrespect on Himself as part of His physical death, He probably would have done that, too.  If you really consider this fact and absorb its true depth, how can anything we are asked to do in humility seem like too much?