We hear a lot in our churches about being Christ-like, but what does this actually mean? I believe it is more than just showing love and grace to the people we happen to come in contact with. We need to imitate Jesus’ life. It seems like we have made Jesus into someone we can adore, but we have forgotten that he is also someone we should replicate. When Jesus walked the earth he questioned and challenged everything (interestingly enough, he was especially unpopular with the church leaders of the day), but he loved so unbendingly that he changed the life of every single person he came in contact with.
Mike Frost talks about “vandalising our pictures of Jesus”. We have made Jesus into a nice person who got along with everyone and was loved by all. In actual fact, if you read the gospels and the stories of Jesus’ life, you find a man who was seen as a rebel by many – he ate and drank with sinners, he argued with church leaders, he destroyed the church’s merchandising stands, he whipped up more wine at a wedding when they ran out. He saw more than the rules – he saw the people who were lost and hurting, and they were his priority. He constantly put himself in the path of people who were not worthy of his attention.
Surely we should follow the example he set – the principles he lived by. To be Christ-like is about imitating the life of Jesus in everything we do, every moment of every day. I am starting to realise just how uncomfortable and challenging this kind of life can actually be, but I have also never enjoyed life more.
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2 comments:
Christ-like is such a subjective term, because we all have different pictures of Christ.
My view changes constantly. Just about every time I open the gospels, in fact. It's amazing how much is actually in there that Jesus did but we gloss over it and don't add it to our own picture of him.
Great post!
Thanks for your comment Heather.
The problem I have faced through many years of being a Christian is that I forgot that the essence of being a Christian is to be like Christ, and as a result, I stopped looking at the Jesus in the Bible and instead went through the motions of being what the church told me I should be.
Thank God, now I have rediscovered the passion to learn more about Jesus himself and to endeavour to imitate what I see of him in my own life. Lee
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