Jesus, A Man of no Reputation

Philippians 2:7 "But made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men."

Paul reminds the church in Philippi that Christ, being God, humbled Himself and put His God nature on the back burner in order to fulfill God's work of redemption on earth. He gives the believers a picture of what it looks like to create unity by serving others. Jesus, who was God, took on the form of a man. And not just any man, a bondservant.
It is impossible for us to imagine what that meant for Jesus. We can try and find comparisons in our created world by saying, for example, that it would be like a man taking on the form of an ant, or maybe an amoeba, or a single cell organism. But that would still be an inadequate comparison since we are only looking at finite, created beings. God, who is the eternal creator, took on the form of a temporal, created being. It is maybe more adequate to say that a man take on the form and being of a machine he created. But then we are still talking about the three dimensional world we are living in. God is outside the space-time continuum. We know from Physics that there are at least 10 dimensions in this universe. So God would have to have limited His existence from 10 to three spacial dimensions when He came down to earth as a man. And that is something that even the greatest mind in human history cannot fathom, since we do not even understand how a being might exist in 10 dimensions. We know from scripture that Jesus, after His resurrection, was able to enter a room without using the doors or coming through the walls - He simply appeared and disappeared. For Jesus to become man and lay aside His God attributes is a far greater act of selflessness than we can ever hope to understand. Suffice it to say that it goes beyond the boundaries of our finite minds. It is one of those mysteries that the created cannot understand about the creator. But the beauty is that we do not need to understand, for the very act of Jesus becoming a man in order to save us from our sins is what we need to focus on. He was higher than any created being, yet made Himself of no reputation.
When men are born into low circumstances, they try all their lives to work themselves "out of the gutter,"the projects, or the slums. They want to move to the nice part of town and surround themselves with all the items they never had growing up. And once they have achieved the status they so longed for there is no way they will ever give it up again. With their dying breath they will clutch to their possessions and miss the opportunity of a fulfilled life. Jesus does not teach us through His example to work for the material treasures of life, but rather to seek first the kingdom of God. The rest will come as needed in our lives. To humble ourselves in the service of man, believers or not, is the greatest expression of love we can show our Savior, who humbled Himself so for our sakes.

Application
I want to become a man who has a good name in Christ's eyes, not a good reputation in the world's perspective. Thus today, I will ask God to help me make a list of areas in my life where I prefer the reputation before man to the approval of God.