The standard for Living Like Christ is laid out in 1 John 2:6 (NRSV): “Whoever says, ‘I abide in him,’ ought to walk just as he walked.” To be sure here, the “him” in that is Jesus. My first reaction to reading that is, impossible. I cannot walk just as Jesus walked, so why even try?
The problem is looking at the issue of Living Like Christ from the wrong start point. I am leaving God out of the equation. Matthew 19:26 (NRSV) says, “But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘for mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’” Mathematically I wonder if it might be stated something like: If G (God) is greater than zero, P (Possibilities) are infinite. Stated as a mathematical equation it is: If G>0, then P = ∞.
The key is keeping God and the infinite possibilities rendered by God present in the narrative of our lives.
Twelve step programs are grounded in the idea we cannot accomplish the hard work of self-awareness of where we need to improve without help from ‘a higher power.’ I find that concept of ‘a higher power’ resident in us from 1 John 4:4 (NRSV): “Little children, you are from God…the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” A piece of God is inside each of us, and it allows us to make impossible work, possible.
Let’s be clear, this walking like Jesus thing isn’t going to happen in a nanosecond, or an instant. It is a slow, deliberate, methodical, diligent, road to holiness. It is our growth as disciples. Even if it surpasses all human understanding, because God is with us on this walk, we can get there from here.
Borrowing an idea from The Velveteen Rabbit, God’s love of us, if we really let it rub off on us, makes us real.
Following my January 3rd Sermon, Charlie Bonsall spoke to me about how the idea of gradual, steady movement towards God, a step at a time, a day at a time, helped him in his life. Yes. I spoke on Christmas Eve about how so often we, incorrectly, think God expects us to move from imperfection to perfection in an instant, a nanosecond. No, no, no. It is gradual and requires diligent, hard work. Charlie and I spoke after the Sunday service about how so many think they know what the church is all about from limited exposure or second hand reports. However, when those same souls get involved in a regular walk with Christ, they see they acquire a new and different interpretation of the church and the good it does in so many ways.
Paul in Philippians 4: 7 (NRSV) suggests: ‘God’s peace surpasses all human understanding.’ So we come full circle to “why try?” We try because the biblical invitation is to do the hard work of walking as Jesus walked. We try because we quest for our lives to be made complete, to be made whole. In Hebrew, God’s peace is about wholeness, completeness. There is in each of us a spiritual hunger that needs to be fed. Jesus is living water, living bread, that nourishes that hunger.
Selah, Pastor Dennis
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