It is written...

Hello, John and Doves,

It is written,

1Who has believed our message?

To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?

2My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,

like a root in dry ground.

There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,

nothing to attract us to him.

3He was despised and rejected—

a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.

We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.

He was despised, and we did not care.

Here, then, is the fanfare we might hear for such an apparently common man.

For it is written,

5In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6Who, being in very nature^a God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature^b of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

~Blessings,

Mike