Wednesday, November 28, 2012

To Be Like Jesus?

Back in the day when I tried to be like Jesus, I felt like a spiritual failure most of the time. It was a caricature of me trying to be Him.  Then a time came when I realized I don't have to try to be like Jesus. It's too draining. Besides, I am like Jesus. I am one with Him. We live in union.

That reality suggests something even harder to conceive: Jesus looks like Steve too. Jesus living out life through a 58 years old guy, who in this single week has been a physically challenged, Sarah McLachlan loving, James Bond Watching, Mannheim Steamroller concert attending, groaning, complaining and feelings scared guy, then laughing and loving and trusting God.

The way I am hardwired - my humor, personality type,my love for words, both thinking about them and profusely expressing them, my mix of sometimes gentle encouragement and sometimes bowl-you-over "prophetic opinions," my deeply pensive moods and my times of laughing with my wife, children and grandchildren until we're all crying.  It's just me. It's just Him. Although I drop the ball on my end sometimes, we make a good pair. Jesus/Steve: Now Appearing Together Daily.

No, I don't have a Messiah complex. Just some insight into an eternal reality that is just as true or you as it is me. It's true of you. IT IS TRUE OF YOU. Own it. Really, act like it's real (because it is) and watch what happens. I dare you to write me after a month and tell me you don't see a difference. It will be a good difference too. An understanding of identity and union that will blow your mind and change your life. Sound New-Agey? Well, it sort of it, but not the way you might think. The better description would be New Covenant. Or to quote the Apostle Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of glory"

4 comments:

  1. It is a very freeing truth! To some it may seem like a subtle difference in wording, but the difference is epic. I am not trying to become like Jesus. By His grace I have been made like Jesus! I can now live out the reality of who I am. What a release from the pressure. What a release of the power of the Spirit within me!

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    1. Ah the Union Life of Christ as our life, very liberating! "When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with Him in glory!"

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  3. Great post Steve, thanks for sharing. :-)

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