What Do You Want To Be? Day 5: Be Like Christ
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, ESV)
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. (John 13:34, ESV)
The previous days of this study have led to this final one in which I hope to explain how to be more like Christ. Although this is just one day of the study, there is a wealth of wisdom found in this area, and countless books have been written about it, so I encourage you to dig deeper on your own. The focus of our lives should be to become more Christlike, holding fast to His Word as our foundation.
There are so many attributes of Christ for us to emulate, but I want to focus on just a few here. I first want to discuss His love. If it were even possible for us to perfectly display the love of Christ to those around us, the impact would be drastic. There are so many songs and quotes that focus on His love, and I really enjoy listening to what others think of His unconditional love. I think others, like myself, have written so much about it because we could never fully express our thankfulness for the depth of His great love.
One of my favorite passages about the love of Christ is found in Romans 8. Regardless of how many difficult things we may go through and circumstances we may find ourselves in, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This is such a comfort to know—nothing we could ever do or experience can stop Him from loving us. We are commanded to love others in this same way (John 13:34), yet often I find my love is conditional and limited to only those who love me back, and can even be selfish at times. His love is unconditional and sacrificial, and no one is out of His reach; our love should be the same.
As difficult as it may be to love others like Christ does, it’s not impossible. When we were saved from our sins, He imparted to us His Spirit to help us in this aspect. He’s also given us His Word which we can study and from which we can learn how to love others. Loving others in this way is a lifelong process where we keep on learning how to show this love. When we spend time in His Word and time in His presence, we will learn so much more about Him and we will long to be more like Him.
Another way to emulate Christ is by forgiving others. Christ is the ultimate example of forgiveness. When He died on the cross, when He hung and suffered there, it wasn’t for any sins that He committed—because He was perfect. He hung there for my sins and for yours because of the love that He had for us (John 3:16). If Christ is perfect and willing to forgive the sins of the entire human race, an imperfect person like me should be willing to forgive the mistakes of those around me.
I always have to remind myself that I am not the ultimate judge over sins—that’s God’s role. Sometimes I try to fill this role and I look down on others for things they have done, but I’m in no place to offer judgment since I’m not perfect either. Instead, I need to pray that I may have eyes, ears, and a heart like Jesus, to treat others around me like He would. Imagine the change in each of our interactions and relationships if we treated others as Christ did. I pray that we will each be challenged to learn more about Christ, and that as a result, we would reflect Him to a world that’s in desperate need of Him.
