Being like Jesus is a tall order, requiring a special commitment, but it is the ultimate fulfillment of the gospel.
It begins with an encounter with Jesus. We must know Him before we can become like Him. It requires more than an examination of what Jesus did. We need an introduction to the one who gave His all so we could be everything God designed us to be. It requires more than simply knowing what Jesus would do. Rather, we need to be so surrendered to Him, so much a part of Him, that we do what He would do naturally.
We are called to a new life—to become the new creature Paul talked about. We must adopt of the qualities of His life that we admire.
Imitating Jesus is far more than accepting him into your heart. In fact, the common description of becoming a Christian, “accepting Jesus into your heart,” never appears in the Bible. Our “being in Christ” is a far more accurate description of salvation than Christ’s being in us. Salvation is not so much the result of Jesus’s coming into our lives as it is the impact of our entering into the life of Christ.
The truth is, Jesus didn’t come just so He could live inside us. He came so our lives would embody His. Jesus does not want to be hidden away in our hearts; He wants us to be in Him, to be like Him in every way. He came to be our ultimate role model. What He did is what we are to do. How He lived is how we are to live.
Jesus didn't come just so he could live inside us. He came so our lives would embody his. -@awakenedtrilogy Click To TweetJesus as our role model is not a difficult sell, because all believers long to connect with Jesus in some way, to share some part of Him. Some want the heart of Jesus so they can know what it means to truly love. Some want the eyes of Jesus so they can see others as He sees them. Some want the wisdom of Jesus so they can know truth. Some want the feet of Jesus so they can walk the path of a servant.
In fact, we are described in 1 Corinthians 2:16 as already having “the mind of Christ.” Yet, the reality is we are called to even more. We are called to be all that Jesus was—to imitate everything about His life and to do what He did. Paul praised the Thessalonian church for doing just that in 1 Thessalonians 1:6, where he wrote, “You became imitators of us and of the Lord.”
Jesus came to show us how to live in the shadow of death, to be constantly tempted by sin, yet never to fear evil. So it follows that it is our responsibility both to accept His gift of salvation and to live by the model He set. We are called to continue the work He began on earth. We are called to live like Jesus in every respect because the purpose of His life was to teach us how to do just that until he returns.
Overall, Jesus had three purposes for coming. He died to pay the price for our sin, so we should accept him. He rose again to claim what He purchased, so we should flock to Him. And He lived to teach us how to live, so we should imitate His life.
Doing what Jesus did is a great adventure, one in which you will be called to deny yourself (Luke 9:23), yet one in which your burden will be light (Matthew 11:30). You will be asked to surrender your life as you see it so you can find it as He lived it (Matthew 16:25). My prayer is that the Spirit will awaken the new creature inside you and release the life that God had planned for you all along. I pray that you will choose Jesus Christ as your role model and that every aspect of your life will follow His example.
Dr. Richard Spillman is the author of The Lazarus Chronicles. He has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and taught Computer Engineering for over 30 years. In 2004 he founded the Kingdom is Near (KIN) Ministries. He has also taught in DTS for YWAM in Mali, South Korea, India and the Philippines.
After his retirement, Richard took up his life long dream to write novels. His first novel, The Awakened, was a Genesis Semi-Finalist and a Cascade finalist.
Everyone dies once. But what if a chosen few were raised from the dead?
Two thousand years ago Jesus resurrected his friend, Lazarus, who founded a secret organization: SOAR. Since then Jesus has added to the resurrected—The Awakened—to aid Lazarus in SOAR’s battle against Satan’s slaves, the UnVeilers. The threat is escalating. The UnVeilers have stepped up their attacks on mankind through a charming leader and a devastating series of bombings in Dubai and Tel Aviv.
But the invasion doesn’t stop with international terrorism. The UnVeilers are searching for a secret that Jesus embedded in Lazarus’ journal that not even Lazarus knows—and it will determine the fate of mankind. After a failed cyber-attack against SOAR’s computers, Lazarus and his team of experts must find the secret before the UnVeilers do. What clue is he overlooking that could turn the tide of this ageless conflict?
