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Discipleship Focus: Imitation
- Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process. First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor. Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.
I think
that imitation is one of the hardest things to do in the Christian life. Yes, we look to Christ. Yes, we are grateful for His sacrifice. We are incredibly thankful for His free gift
of eternal life. But then we have to
live like He lived.
How
exactly did He live?
- He was there when the crowd needed Him.
- He healed people.
- He listened to them.
- He received anyone who wanted to come to Him regardless of how much or how little money they had, how great or how small their reputation was, and what gender they were.
- He taught and re-taught when His disciples didn’t understand.
- He accepted that His disciples would turn on Him and abandon Him.
- He died for us even though He was incredibly innocent.
In other
words, He was selfless. He gave of
Himself for our sake. He didn’t come to achieve
His goals, He came to accomplish God’s will for our sake.
This is
why I think imitating God is one of the hardest parts of the Christian
walk. Gratitude and thankfulness is
natural and easy. But putting our feet
forward and living out God’s truth in our lives is difficult. Living a life that pursues God’s agenda and
pushes our own agenda down is far more difficult in reality than it sounds.
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