Two Things that Are Suited to Humble the Soul of Men

 "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all" (1 Chronicles 29:11) #ServeToLead #PreachTheWord #TheGreatnessOfGod

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Mirian and Aaron: Sibling Rivalry

I asked my smart little cousin, "Who annoys you the most?" Without missing a beat, he said, "My little brother!" (Oh, like Missy and Sheldon, my favorite TV Series Young Sheldon). But as brothers and sisters mature, there will be less rivalry, right? Well, read Numbers 12. Don't bet on it 😅⚡✔ #ServeToLead #SiblingRivalry #BiblicalCharacters

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Womanhood: A Woman Is... by Erlinda Mikal

I agree! A woman highest calling is fear of the Lord. Perhaps the most famous passage about Biblical Womanhood, Proverbs 31 teaches that a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised (verse 30)

I asked my friend, Erlinda Mikal, a wife, a mother, and a teacher, to share with LEGASI.tv, in her opinion, what are the five (5) virtues of a woman. Check it out ⚡

[P. s: What about man? Ask her husband, Albert Macewell. To watch 5 Vital Characteristics of A Man, CLICK HERE: https://youtu.be/Z3BO98x58d8] 

#ServeToLead #Womanhood #GrowingLeader #FearOfTheLord #EmpoweredWomen #SeekWisdon

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Angelus' Quote: Pride will Kill a Man

Pride will kill a man... Trust me, I know. I went to prison because of it 😬 Pride is hard to detect in ourselves. Others can see it in us, but we have difficulty detecting it. If you have good friends, ask them to comment on you. Usually, they will be honest if you're sincere. What makes pride dangerous is that it creates a false reflection in the mirror.

Humility is the answer. The key to biblical humility is to allow your thoughts to come under the teaching and control of Christ (read Philippians 2). Allow your attitude and behavior to be formed by the direction of God's spirit, not your own. Humility is the cure to pride - and it begins on your knees in prayer. How wonderful if a man falls in front of his King! 😉🔥📖 #ServeToLead #Manhood

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Angelus' Quote: To Whom Is a Leader to Be Humble?

Currently, I'm reading Launching A Leadership Revolution (2005) 😉 In the book, the authors say that being teachable is a must attitude for a leader. Arrogance is dangerous. "The opposite of arrogance is humility. To whom is a leader to be humble? The answer: Anyone who has something to teach," they explained.

Leaders must be humble so that they can learn from their mentors, peers, and subordinates (another way to say followers) regardless of their titles or positions. Arrogant leaders don't learn until it's too late, if at all 😢 #ServeToLead
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Angelus' Quote: The X-factor of Great Leadership

Humility matters in leadership. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great (I recommend this book), says, “the X-factor of great leadership is not personality; it is humility.”

It took many years for me to realize how by simply saying "I'm sorry" can help me as a leader. For years, I thought leadership meant insulating myself from my students and hiding any weaknesses. If I made a mistake, I'd pretend it was just a misunderstanding or someone else's fault. No more! If I'm wrong, I'll be quick to say, "I'm sorry." Trust me, if you do this with sincerity and humility, others will respect you more and willing to follow your directions 💪😉😊

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Angelus' Quote: Learning Will Make You Humble

"Humble" is not the first-word people will describe me. I agree. If the term "humble" means slow to give suggestion/feedback, talk softly, look down on oneself, always choose the worst thing and being ignorant, then, I'm far from being 'humble'. I'm rude and brash. But I love to learn. I love wisdom (Philosophy come from the Greek roots philo- meaning "love" and -sophos, or "wisdom").

One of the main ways for me to learn is through reading. One of my favorite subjects is on creative and critical thinking. Next is philosophy. One student mentioned that I must be an expert after the amount of time I had spent on it, and I replied, "It only made me realize how much I didn't know... It is a never-ending process of learning." Studying about the mind, psychology, philosophy, theology, and history had made me very humble (or rather, it humbled me) because I knew I'd never know it all no matter how much I studied.

If you keep on learning, you'll realize how much more you don't know. Thus, every time you learn one thing, it will lead to another thing and so on. Those who stop learning are actually the proud and joyless people. The fact that I love wisdom keeps me young in my mind and heart and eager to learn more, no matter how 'smart' people considered me to be. Bluntly, I say to a group of young students, "I'm 32 years old already, but I have a curiosity and energy of 15 years old. Most of you are no doubt younger than me, but your body and energy are as low as 60+ years old. You must keep learning." Every day is another opportunity to learn something new. Better you start now while you're still young.

If you don't learn, you won't know what you don't know - that will make you a proud person. Never be a know-it-all [I hate young-and-proud-Calvinists and their gurus. They talked as if they know ALL the mystery of God. Theology supposed to humble you, not make you an a**h*l*]. Don't be a fake 'humble' person. In term of growth, ignorance is not a bliss. Take this advice to heart: The more you learn [continuous learning], the more you realize what you don't know [awareness], and this will make you humble [result].

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Angelus' Quote: Be A Lifelong Learner

To know is to arrive; to ask questions is to embark on a quest. People whose lives are characterized by a question mark (?) rather than a period (!), who look for learning opportunities everywhere they go. I say again, "To be a lifelong learner is both fun and functional, and all we need to travel along that path is a humble heart and a curious mind." Every person we meet, a situation we are in, books we read, etc. can teach us something; each experience holds within it an important lesson; in every moment is a message waiting to be discovered. When we embrace the spirit of inquiry and curiosity, we embrace life. How wonderful it is that this life is an inexhaustible source of wonders. How exciting to learn that the excitement of learning can last a lifetime. Even young Jesus “listening to [the Jewish teachers] and asking questions” and they in return “were amazed at his intelligent answers” (Luke 2:46-47).

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John C. Maxwell on Leadership #21 Be Impressed, Not Impressive

Too often we think that if we can impress others, we will gain influence with them. We want to become others’ heroes – to be larger than life. That creates a problem because we’re real live human beings. People can see us for who we really are. If we make it our goal to impress them, we puff up our pride and end up being pretentious – and that turns people off.

If you want to influence others, don’t try to impress them. Pride is really nothing more than a form of selfishness, and pretence is only a way to keep people at arm’s length so that they can’t see who you really are. Instead of impressing others, let them impress you.

It’s really a matter of attitude. The people with charisma, those who attract others to themselves, are individuals who focus on others, not themselves. They ask questions of others. They listen. They don’t try to be the centre of attention. And they never try to pretend they’re perfect.

[Taken from The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization (2011) by John C. Maxwell. Published by Thomas Nelson]

Listen with the purpose of understanding today,

and benefit from the knowledge, experience, and perspective of others.

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Young Men and Women, Consider the Power of Jesus

“[I am] glad to boast about my weaknesses,

so that the power of Christ can work through me”

(2 Corinthians 12:9, NLT)

It is a truth of Scripture that whatever Jesus is, He is for us by virtue of our union with Him. His power works through me or dwells in me. He is the “reservoir of divine omnipotence from which we can constantly draw for our ever-recurring needs.”

It is good to know that the Greek word dunamis, or inherent power, is different from exousia, or authority. The writers of the Gospel never used the word dunamis together with our Lord while He was on earth nor in the Bible does Jesus ever exercise His dumanis. There is only one occasion on which both words are used of Him: “What authority (exousia) and power (dunamis) this man’s words possess! Even evil spirits obey him, and they flee at his command!” (Luke 4:36). But these were the words of neither the comment of the Gospel’s writers nor of Jesus Himself, but of the people, the spectators. Elsewhere, only exousia (authority) is used of Him. “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth…” (Matthew 28:18).

Jesus was the Son of God but He completely identified Himself with the human race – us. Therefore, in fulfilling His earthly ministry, He never exercised or draw on His inherent power (although He could!) but exerted only the authority delegated from His Father.

There is much comfort and encouragement for us redeemed-sinners in this fact. When we read of Jesus’ miraculous works of power, it seems like it does not help us much. We say, “Yes, that is wonderful but He was the Son of God. I am just a weak and sinful man. Christ had powers and resources that are not available to me. He was sinless and I am sinful.” But that is just where we are wrong.  Although Jesus possessed limitless inherent power, He voluntarily refrained from using it (He can but He won’t). In order that Jesus might be made “in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:17), He renounced that privilege and restrict Himself to exercise only the authority His Father had delegated to Him. Jesus claimed: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself” (John 5:19).

His miracles were not performed by innate power, but in dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s dunamis. In the same way, the miracles done by the apostles were done by the authority He delegated to them. So, instead of being discouraged by the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, we can be encouraged that He chose to be continually dependent on His Father for power to do His will. We can do the same!

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Young Men and Women, Consider the Humility of Jesus

"[Jesus] humbled himself in obedience to God…"
(Philippians 2:8,NLT)

To His ambitious disciples, Jesus said, "I am among you as one who serves" (Luke 22:27). The background of this staggering assertion was the unseemly argument among His disciples as to who should be the greatest in God's kingdom. With such power-struggle, the Master's humility stands in striking contrast.

Humility is a distinctively human grace, though Christ's contemporaries viewed it as anything but a virtue (even today people praise the ‘virtue of pride'). Jesus elevated the word and interpreted it with new meaning – God-view-meaning. Humility is not, as many feels, thinking meanly or talk down to oneself. Rather, it is thinking or talking not of oneself at all! This was characteristic of our Lord. He was clothed with humility, and it was not an outer pretense but inward life within Him.

Let us consider first the example He sets. It has rightly been said that Jesus ‘was a standing rebuke to the pride of every kind and a living example of humility at its highest.' By working as a carpenter, He rebuked pride of birth and of rank and position. He rebuked the pride of independence by allowing women to supply His financial needs while on earth. He rebuked pride of intellect when He said, "I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me" (John 8:28). He rebuked the pride of self-help and will-power when He asserted, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19). He was content to be nothing in order that His Father might be all. [P.s: Notice how often Jesus used words like "nothing" and "not" of Himself in the Gospel of John. Underline the occurrences and then follow the example. Jesus was just as humble before men as He was before the Father.]

Secondly, consider the teaching He gave on the theme of humility. His humility consisted in the surrender of Himself to the Father for the fulfillment of His will and He taught us to have the same attitude. Hear His words: "God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him" (Matthew 5:3); "I am humble and gentle at heart" (Matthew 11:29); "Whoever wants to be the first among you must become your slave" (Matthew 20:27); "For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (Luke 14:11).

Only the indwelling Christ – Christ in us – can make us truly humble and self-forgetful; only He can reproduce in us His own humility through the Holy Spirit. How slow we are to learn that God's way up is down! Our pride came from the flesh, but the source of our humility is from the Spirit of Christ. Amen.

Jesus says, "I am humble and gentle at heart."

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Book Review: Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn (2015)

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn:
Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (2015)
by John C. Maxwell

When I first became trainee as Assistant Manager at GSC Times Square, KL few years ago, I knew that I don't have experience as a leader at workplace. At school, yes; campus, oh yeah; workplace, not so much (part-time doesn't count). One of books on leadership that was very helpful for me during that challenging time is John C. Maxwell's Ultimate Leadership (2007), a 544 pages book! I underlines, highlighted and taking notes. Bulky book, a bible on leadership (second on the list is Gene Wilkes's Jesus on Leadership). Any books by John C. Maxwell will never fail you, this I'm quite sure. Without exception, Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn is one of the best. Want to know what this book is all about? Read the title and subtitles below - and you'll know what it is all about:

Chapter #1 When You're Losing, Everything Hurts

#2 Humility: The Spirit of Learning

#3 Reality: The Foundation of Learning

#4 Responsibility: The First Step of Learning

#5 Improvement: The Focus of Learning

#6 Hope: The Motivation of Learning

#7 Teachability: The Pathway of Learning

#8 Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning

#9 Problems: Opportunities for Learning

#10 Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning

#11 Change: The Price of Learning

#12 Maturity: The Value of Learning

#13 Winning Isn't Everything, But Learning Is

Good book! :)

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Jesus' Leadership #5 Willingness to Look Foolish

What does each of these characters have in common?

§  A deluded engineer

§  A magician

§  A waiter

§  A nudist

§  A beggar

§  A lunatic

§  A harem girl

§  An improper woman

§  A blasphemer

[Think about it for 15 seconds without scrolling down]

These were roles assumed or assigned to the following:

§  Noah (designed and built the ark in the middles of a desert)

§  Moses (turned water into blood)

§  Nehemiah (was cupbearer to a king)

§  Isaiah (went naked for three years)

§  Elijah (had to ask a widow for food)

§  King David (acted insane to escape his captors)

§  Queen Esther (made her way to the top of the king’s list)

§  Mary (conceived a child before proper marriage)

§  Jesus (claimed to be equal to God)

God had little use for people whose main concern is “What will the neighbors think?” Leaders must willing to sacrifice and take risks with their public image.

Jesus was willing to look foolish. And this was the key to his success as the leader. Coming into town on a donkey, having to fish to pay your taxes, and forgetting to bring extra wine during (probably one of his family’s) wedding party. Crying like a rejected lover, passing out invitations to a feast that largely go unanswered, having to stand on front porches and knock hardly sounds like a job description for a king. Before and at the Cross, Jesus being laughed and mocked at.

Godly leaders cannot be afraid to look foolish. We must keep to the plan that we vaguely sense but that only God can see.

Are you willing to look foolish as a leader?

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Jesus' Leadership #3 Sense of Ownership

Ownership is an interesting and elusive concept because it implies a permanent state of possession. Yet all things, even life itself, are only on loan to us. Author and management consultant Ken Blanchard says that visionary leaders are those who view life’s resources as being on loan to them, while more limited thinkers are still in an acquisition mode.

I wonder if God whispered, “The entire world is yours” to Jesus as he sent him into the world. Jesus clearly demonstrated a sense of ownership of all things. Whether the need was a donkey to carry him into town, an upper room to pray in, wine for a wedding, or even coins to pay Caesar’s tax, Jesus did not consider himself as a beggar king. He used his divine sense of ownership to create the goods he needed when he needed them. And many times what he needed was delivered through the generosity and willingness of those he served.

In the Garden of Eden God told Adam and Eve, “I give you all this. Take care of it” (Genesis 1:26). He told Abraham the same thing, “All of this land is yours” (Genesis 13:17). Jesus described himself in one parable as the ‘Husbandman’ who had been sent to take care of the vineyard. He looked at the world and the people in it as his responsibility, his inheritance, and his heritage. The whole universe was his and he knew it. Perhaps that is one reason why the people called him “King” (besides he deserved it). It was the way he looked at the world and carried himself in it.

Jesus said, “All that the Father has is mine” (John 17:10). Every galaxy, every new born sheep, every fish leaping into the net, all that the Father had was his, and he knew it. He “owned it.”

If only each of us – Christ’s disciples – could get a good look at the heavenly “deed” written in our name. If only we could study it and know our inheritance by heart, we would walk on this planet a different way. With more gentleness, perhaps, and more certainty and power. In order to own a gift you must first receive it. Jesus had power because he “owned” it.

Do you have the mind-set and attitude of ownership?

In Christ, how can you use it for the greater good? With authority and humility?

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Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn (Get Your FREE BOOK Here!)

“Difficulties come to you at the right time to help you grow and move forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy come when we suffer without learning the lesson”
(Emmet Fox)

If you’re going to lose – and you are because everyone does – then why not turn it into a gain? How do you do that? By learning from it. A loss isn’t totally a loss if you learn something as a result of it. Your loses can come to define you if you let them. If you stay where a loss leaves you, then eventually you can get stuck there. But know this: Your choices will begin to declare you. You can choose to change, grow, and learn from your losses.

That, of course, is not necessarily easy. In a favourite Peanuts comic strip Charlie Brown walks away from Lucy after a baseball game, head down, totally dejected. “Another ball game lost! Good grief!” Charlie moans. “I get tired of losing. Everything I do, I lose!” “Look at it this way, Charlie Brown,” Lucy replies. “We learn more from losing than we do from winning.” “That makes me the smartest person in the world!” replies Charlie.

It’s a good thought, but not everyone learns from his losses. A loss doesn’t turn into a lesson unless we work hard to make it so. Losing gives us an opportunity to learn, but many people do not seize it. And when they don’t, losing really hurts.

Learning is not easy during down times because it requires us to do things that are not natural. It is hard to smile when we are not happy. It is difficult to positively respond when numb with defeat. It takes discipline to do the right thing when everything is wrong. How can we be emotionally strong when we are emotionally exhausted? How will we face others when we are humiliated? How do we get back up when we are continually knocked down?

In his book Sometimes You Win – Sometimes You Learn (2013), John C. Maxwell wants to help you to answer these and others questions about learning from losses. John believes you can do that using this road maps:

Humility: The Spirit of Learning

Reality: The Foundation of Learning

Responsibility: The First Step of Learning

Improvement: The Focus of Learning

Hope: The Motivation of Learning

Teachability: The Pathway of Learning

Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning

Problems: Opportunities for Learning

Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning

Change: The Price of Learning

Maturity: The Value of Learning

I want to give you a FREE COPY of this book – hardcover with large print – if you can answer (comment on my blog post below) these three simple questions: #1 What is your personal motto or favourite quote on failure? #2) Who or what is your main inspiration to move forward in life? And 3) Why you got to have a copy of this book? There are only THREE (3) COPIES AVAILABLE, get your copy now! [Malaysian readers only]

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Young Men and Women, Consider the Meekness of Jesus

“I am gentle and humble in heart…”
(Matthew 11:29, NIV)

In these words, Jesus crowned the modest grace of meekness queen of virtues. In the Lord’s time, as in our own, meekness was regarded as feminine and self-abasing. Do we not usually associate the word with someone who is insignificant and labours under an inferiority complex?

The word “meekness” was one of the great ethical words of the Greeks. Aristotle, the philosopher, viewed it as the happy mean between two extremes: between too much anger and too little anger, for example. It was also used of the breaking-in of a horse in which the animal learned to accept control and bow to the will of another. With this background, let us consider its application to the Lord.

It might be said that meekness plus lowliness equals humility. Meekness is humility toward God. Lowliness is humility toward men. Jesus claimed both qualities for Himself. For this it is clear that meekness is not the equivalent of mildness or weakness of character. His activity in cleansing the Temple (John 2; Mark 11) was anything but mild. Meekness is strong, but it is strength held in control. When the glory of God is involved, the meek person can fight with vigour.

In what ways did Jesus display this lowly grace? He demonstrated it in His boyhood when, after His experience in the Temple, He went home and was subject to His parents (Luke 2:41-52). Without complaint He was willing to perform the lowliest duties. He made ploughs and yokes for the farmers of Nazareth. What an occupation for Him who made the world! He meekly accepted the Father’s plan for His life, even though it involved exchanging the freedom of the universe for the restrictions of a village carpenter’s shop.

Jesus was meek in His dealings with fallen humanity – even His own disciples – with doubting Thomas, with traitorous Judas, with denying Peter, and with thunderous James and John. Meekness is essentially the attitude that does not insist on its own rights, but it always ready to let go of privilege in the interests of others. Is this grace prominent in our lives? Meekness is measured by what we can endure without complaint or retaliation or demanding our rights. The meek person is willingly to submit to the will of God.  

How can we learn this grace of meekness?

“The fruit of the Spirit is… meekness” (Galatians 5:22-23, ASV).

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Young Men and Women, Consider the Mind of Jesus

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus”

(Philippians 2:5, NIV)

In this great Christological passage, Paul throws out a starling challenge: Reflect in your own mind the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ was more than His thinking processes; it was His entire inner disposition. It included His thoughts and motives and desires. Because we reflect the mind of Christ so imperfectly, we make a very slight impression on the cynical world around us. J. Stuart Holden writes: “The world does not believe in Him whom it has not seen, because it has cause not to believe in us whom it has seen.”

The mind of Christ is seen operating on two levels in this passage. On the level of deity, Christ did not count equality with God and its attendant majesty something to retained and grasped at all costs. He did not greedily cling to His rights as God’s equal. Instead, He emptied Himself. He resigned all His outward glory, veiled His majesty, and accepted the limitations involved in assuming human form. He could never be less than God, but He renounced the outward display of His majesty and glory. Yielding up the independent exercise of His divine attributes, He became a servant. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (KJV).

The mind of Christ displayed on the level of humanity. “He humbled himself” (v.8). We have every season to humble ourselves, but it was not so with Him. He did not demand, as He might well have done, such a standard of treatment as befitted His dignity. Instead of a palace, He chose a manger. His throne was a carpenter’s bench, and His sceptre a hammer. His university was a village school. So low did He stoop in His self-humiliation that He accepted the lowest step – death on the cross.

This display of His mind was progressive. It began in His thinking, led to self-abasement, and culminated in self-oblation. Sacrificial love led Him to take these downward steps, and we are to follow His example. His mind was the exact reverse of the worldly mind that revels in position and power; that considers wealth and possessions the greatest good; that delights in being served rather than in serving others; that shrinks from suffering and shame. “Have the same mindset.” “Let this mind be in you.”

[Edited, modified and modernized from Consider Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

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Young Men, Consider the Suffering of Jesus

“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps”

(2 Peter 2:21, NIV).

Our Lord Jesus Christ was the Prince of sufferers. Here, as in all else, He was preeminent (surpassing all others). We tend to conceive of His sufferings mainly in the realm of the physical, but so intense were His spiritual sufferings that physical pain could have been almost a relief.

He was a sinless Sufferer. Note the juxtaposition of the two thoughts: Christ “suffered for you… He committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:21-22). His sinlessness only added to the poignancy of His sufferings. Suffering can mean much or little according to the nature of the person. An unmusical person does not perceive a discord, but to the sensitive musician, it causes exquisite pain. Neglect is not keenly felt when love is lacking. In the human nature of the Master, passion had not done its ugly work, nor had His powers become atrophied through neglect. It is the holy person who feels sin most keenly.

He was a sensitive Sufferer. Jesus was the essence of refinement and sensitivity. He possessed all the gentler graces as well as all the innocence of manhood. He was by nature a sensitive person. How He must have suffered when denounced as a deceiver and a liar (see John 7:12); a blasphemer (Matthew 9:3); in league with the devil (see John 8:52); a glutton and a drunkard (Luke 7:34). Jesus was really human, and these charges occasioned Him intense suffering. His suffering was real, not a theatrical display; and these verbal accusations pierced more deeply than the crown of thorns.

He was a sacrificed Sufferer. The substitutionary element in Christ’s death is prominent in this paragraph. “Christ suffered from you… ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:21, 24). He not only pardoned our sins but took them away. How amazing that the blood that stained the soldier’s spear was the sole remedy for the soldier’s sin! Whoever dreamed of the crime procuring salvation? And His death was not only vicarious but voluntary. He was led, not dragged to the cross.

He was a silent Sufferer. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats” (1 Peter 2:23). He harbored no spirit of retaliation. Like an aromatic leaf, the crushing only released the fragrance. Not a word of complaint crossed His lips. Instead He “entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

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Young Men, Consider the Head of Jesus

“On his head are many crowns”
(Revelation 19:12, NIV)

The head is the control tower of the body. From it, impulses and messages are transmitted to the farthest limb. It is the dominant part of the body. Our Lord’s head is mentioned several times in Scriptures, sometimes in its humiliation, sometimes in its exaltation.

He was a homeless head. “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). In these graphic words, Jesus indicated His rejection by His people. There was no bed for Him in the inn. Many were the night His head never touched a pillow. During His ministry, He had no home and was dependent on the hospitality of others.

But it was also an anointed head. In the extravagance of her love, Mary broke the priceless box of the fragrant anointing oil and poured it over His head (see Mark 14:3). Her act of love was to Him a green oasis in the dreary desert of rejection, a refreshing drought on the desolate road to the cross. Not everyone rejected Him.

His head was callously struck by His tormentors. “[They] twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head… They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again” (Matthew 27:29-30). The staff, mock royal scepter, was used to bruise and degrade the head of the Son of God. “He was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). And those who struck Him were representative of us all.

His head was crowned in mockery (see Matthew 27:29). Thorns, a symbol of curse, adorned the brow of the Lord of glory, every thorn a point of fire.

“Is their diadem, as monarch,

That His brow adorns?

Yea, a crown, in very surety,

But of thorns”

(Author unknown)

“He bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). All through the ghastly ordeal of crucifixion, His head had remained erect. The curse broke His heart but did not bow His head. Now His work was finished.

Again we see His head in dazzling majesty. “His head was white like wool, as white as snow” (Revelation 1:14). It is again erect and radiant. Never again will He bow it before His creations. In His hand, there is no longer a mocking staff, but the scepter of universal dominion.

Our final view of His head is crowned with many crowns (Revelation 19:12). He is crowned with glory and honor, the reward of His obedience unto death.

[Edited, modified and modernized from considering Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.