Humble Stoop

I Corinthians 8:11 "So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge."

I read an interesting article about Sandra Day O'Connor. It seems her husband of 54 years is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and is in a nursing home. . . where he has found himself a girlfriend! He can't remember his marriage, so he has responded to this woman that he has just met. Now here's the kicker: Every day she goes to visit - and sits with the two of them. She knows that his level of understanding doesn't allow him to remember their relationship. But for his peace - she sacrifices her deeper knowledge.

This is an incredible act of submission - when you forfeit your "higher knowledge" and stoop to the level of understanding of a fellow Christian so that they may be at peace. Instead of spending our time proving our greater understanding, instead of reveling in our freedom in Christ, imagine if we looked at our weaker brother and humbly put aside everything and allowed him to sit in the peace of his limited knowledge. Without bitterness, without regret, without even the motivation of thinking how great we are for doing this.

Christ did exactly that for us. While we were dead in our sins, sitting in the darkness of our limited understand of Him, He came and died for us. He broke into our ignorance, and stooped to our level of understanding, and opened our eyes to the Truth. That is such an amazing act of love that I can't believe we would ever turn around and harm a brother for whom He also died.

We really aren't that smart in the first place, and any knowledge that is worth anything comes from Him, so what is the source of our pride in the first place?