Christ's Obedience

Philippians 2:8 "And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."

As the apostle Paul is writing to the Philippians and exhorting them to have unity and joy in their fellowship He points to Jesus as our example. Jesus was God, an eternal being, and became man, so that He could live as a man and ultimately die as a man as the propitiation for our sins. Paul points out in this verse that Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient.
God had a plan from the beginning to save Adam and his descendants form the deadly effects of sin in their lives. He sent them out of the Garden, out of reach of the tree of life in order that they would not live in sin forever, but die in their sinful state and be resurrected in a new, sinless state once they accepted His plan of salvation. All through history God worked toward that plan of salvation and used His creation and men to tell the world about His plan. Then it was time to carry out the plan that GOd devised and Jesus was to be the answer to all of man's problems. In his sinful state, man could never pay enough to make up for sinning against a holy God, for anything less than holy could not satisfy the requirements to pay the penalty for sinful behavior. It had to be a holy sacrifice to relink man with God and enable man to spend eternity in the presence of a holy God. Thus the only satisfactory sacrifice would be that a holy being, God, come to earth as a man, live a sinless life and then die in our stead. God knew this from the beginning and that is precisely what He had in mind. So He sent Jesus to earth to carry out His redemptive mission, all along remembering His motivation for such a sacrificial act: His love for mankind. Jesus was obedient to that plan to the end and fulfilled it perfectly. Just one little sin on His behalf in His 30 plus years of life would have destroyed that plan. But He did not falter. He was obedient at every point of His manly existence and carried out His Father's plan to the "t."
There were many times in His life that I am sure He was weak, tired, hungry, angry, and lonely, any of which situations cause me to sin almost without exception. I know that I do not have the self control Jesus displayed, so I have to rely on the Holy Spirit to help me die daily and become more and more like Christ.

Application
I want to be obedient in my walk with God, no matter what the circumstances are in my life. That requires a concentrated effort to focus on God every day of my life. Therefore, I will resolve to make it a practice for the rest of my time at PFR to pray three times a day routinely.