Attitude is everything. We all probably need an attitude adjustment. Pop-psychology tells us that our happiness and success depend on having a positive attitude. Our health depends on a positive attitude. Have you ever been told that you can beat your ailment or disease if you just have a positive attitude?
Back in grammar school, did Sister ever tell you to wipe that attitude off your face or she’ll do it for you? If so, you know how important attitude is to your wellbeing.
As Christian disciples, we may need an attitude adjustment to be in line with Jesus. St. Paul tells us this truth in Philippians 2: 5 where he says, “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.” What are the attitudes of Christ? To be a good steward, consider these three:
1st: Humility. We go on to read about Jesus’s humility in verse 6. Here is Jesus, you know, God, “who, though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”
2nd: Obedience. Jesus’s main concern was to do the will of God. In obedience to His Father, He humbled himself and became like us. He took on our sin becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (8).
3rd: Detachment. King Jesus cared nothing about what the world thinks is important. Our vision of the power and wealth that a ruler should wield are anathema to Him. We know that rulers lord it over people. But Lord Jesus ruled by serving others.
So as good stewards of God’s many gifts, in humble obedience, let’s detach from our desire for more and our fear of not having enough. Let us “do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others (Phil 2:3-4).”
Fr. Richard Rohr shared, “To know and to follow Christ crucified is to know and love those children, women, and men who are poor, excluded, and despised.” He went on to say that we should despise what Jesus despised on the cross: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. (CAC, April 2022)..
“The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line which entangles the soul and prevents it flying to God.” St. Augustine
Photo Credit: Robert Davis
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