Christian Living

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Be Like Jesus

By Deline Tan

Life is more than fun. It can be a pleasure if you look at things the way Jesus would look at it. Imagine the life that Jesus lived. Yes, Jesus suffered because of fallen humanity, yet throughout His life, there was this streak of joy that never left Him. The Pharisees were unable to trick or trodden Him down because He not only had wisdom but also character. He knew how to handle opposition, and nothing could bring His Spirit down.

Likewise for us, we too can live a life like Jesus. Today, He is in our midst and He will guide us in every area of our direction, if only we were to ask Him. Wisdom comes from God, and if we want to live life to the fullest, be like Jesus. We can learn from Him from the Bible, and we can emulate Him if we carefully study the scriptures. We can know Him both through His Spirit and the Word for these are made available if we were to yield our lives to Him.

There are certain steps to take if we want to be like Him. First, have we taken Him as our Lord apart from being our Saviour? Do we live our lives under the shadow of His wings as we acknowledged Him as our Master and Lord? Do we know Him intimately as the decisions we made are based on His Lordship where we are utterly dependent on Him.

Secondly, we want to know Him through the study of His Word. As we know Him through His Word, we will be more and more like Him. We obey the scriptures by doing what God’s Word says. As we feed on His Word, we will grow intimate with Him and will know His perfect will for our lives.

Thirdly, we follow His footsteps in everything that we do. 1 Pet 2:21. While Jesus was on earth, He said in John 5:19 that He does nothing of Himself but what He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, He also does in like manner. Jesus never looses sight of what the Father wanted Him to do, for He kept a close-knit relationship with the Father by abiding in Him. As He yielded to Him, He was sensitive to do all that the Father wanted Him to do. We must be like Jesus, doing what He wants us to do, and remain obedient to Him in everything that He says.

Fourthly, Jesus had compassion for the crowd, for in Matt 9:36 it says that when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Yes, we must have compassion for the lost, taking every opportunity to share the gospel with the non-believers. This is the very reason why Jesus came to this earth, to give Himself to us by dying on the cross, and therefore we who are saved, must bring this good news to others too. We must have love and compassion in our heart if we want to be like Jesus, seeing others through His eyes.

Fifthly, we must ask God for spiritual gifts to heal the sick and cast out demons, for these were the very things that Jesus did. In Jn 14:12 Jesus says that he who believes in Him, the works that He did we shall also do, and greater works than these he will do, because He goes to the Father. Jesus wants us to do the work that He did, and He said we would even do greater works that what He had done. Aspiring for spiritual gifts is good, for Paul even admonish us to do that, as 1 Cor 14:1 says, “Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts…”

The joy of the Lord is our strength. Neh 8:10b. Yes, strength comes from knowing Jesus and having His joy. We must not yield to circumstances but we must overcome them by the joy that Jesus gave. Joy is a state of mind. When adversity and calamity hit us, we can choose to remain in that condition of despair, or we can rise up with joy and overcome that situation.

Our victory comes from the life that we emulate in Jesus. Jesus has set us the example. When we look at His life while He was on earth, we can follow His foot-steps. 1 Pet 2:21b. He handled the Pharisees with wit and always silent His opponents. Likewise, we can learn from Jesus by being yielded to Him, and He will give us the wisdom to handle any situation that comes our path. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and we must abide in Him with reverence for His name before He can help us in any situation. Prov 9:10.

Suffering is something that Jesus never shuns away from. He suffered humanity’s on-slaught out of His own free will when He would have chosen to remain in heaven than to come to this earth. Yet He chose suffering as the way of an example for mankind, that with suffering, we too could be perfected in our character, and be more like Jesus. We may not understand why we have to suffer, but if it is God’s will that we go through the ordeal, and may we give Him glory and praise. He is worthy of our worship and we glorify Him to give Him thanks for all of our circumstances.

There will come a time when God will exalt us if we were to remain humble and teachable. Life problems are painful, but if we are in the will of God, we can count His blessings. Problems and troubles will end, but what would last is our character, honed and refined by the Master’s hand.

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