Being Like Jesus
Most of our world has been beaten down by a religious spirit for thousands, of years. They know a great deal about guilt, condemnation, shame, powerlessness, and inability.
You need to offer them something different than they already have.
Otherwise, you are just replacing one religious spirit with another one.
You need to have a HUGE view of God's grace, identity inside of Christ, our inheritance in Christ, and what He has called us to be through Jesus – to be just like Him. Don't put any ceiling on anything that God hasn't put a cap on. Don't limit what He can do through me, you, or anyone else completely yielded to Him.
“The lie of the enemy is that you can never become like Jesus or do what He did.”
“We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” - 1 Jn 3:2-3
We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3 18)
The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. - Luke 6:40
I like Max Lucado's quotes, one of my favorites: “God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus. ” ― Max Lucado
I am intentionally challenging a lie that the enemy has carefully planted in the hearts of a vast majority of Christians without their awareness it even exists. In a surface way, every Christian says they want to be like Jesus. Even wear the WWJD bracelet to remind them of how much they miss it all the time.
To become like Jesus is the goal of every Christian, or at least SHOULD be. It is foundational to the Christian life. This is seen throughout history as well as in the Bible. There were first called Christians (“little Christs”) at Antioch (Acts 11:26), because they so resembled Jesus, that their enemies mocked them by calling them “Christians”. What an honor really! And people have ever since been trying to be like Jesus – growing beards, making carpentry their profession, memorizing the red letters in the Bible, or trying to imitate the things He did by copying it word-for-word, like it is some kind of pre-programmed script that should automatically work for their lives like is did for Him: “Let's see, I put mud on his eyes, but nothing happened???”
Yet, the truth remains of what He has said of us, that cannot be revoked:
We are a pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim.3:15)
We are more than conquerors through Christ (Rom. 8:37)
We are the Body of Christ (1 Cor.12:27)
As Jesus is, so are we in this world (1 Jn 4:17)
We are partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4)
We are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)
You need to offer them something different than they already have.
Otherwise, you are just replacing one religious spirit with another one.
You need to have a HUGE view of God's grace, identity inside of Christ, our inheritance in Christ, and what He has called us to be through Jesus – to be just like Him. Don't put any ceiling on anything that God hasn't put a cap on. Don't limit what He can do through me, you, or anyone else completely yielded to Him.
“The lie of the enemy is that you can never become like Jesus or do what He did.”
“We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” - 1 Jn 3:2-3
We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3 18)
The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. - Luke 6:40
I like Max Lucado's quotes, one of my favorites: “God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus. ” ― Max Lucado
I am intentionally challenging a lie that the enemy has carefully planted in the hearts of a vast majority of Christians without their awareness it even exists. In a surface way, every Christian says they want to be like Jesus. Even wear the WWJD bracelet to remind them of how much they miss it all the time.
To become like Jesus is the goal of every Christian, or at least SHOULD be. It is foundational to the Christian life. This is seen throughout history as well as in the Bible. There were first called Christians (“little Christs”) at Antioch (Acts 11:26), because they so resembled Jesus, that their enemies mocked them by calling them “Christians”. What an honor really! And people have ever since been trying to be like Jesus – growing beards, making carpentry their profession, memorizing the red letters in the Bible, or trying to imitate the things He did by copying it word-for-word, like it is some kind of pre-programmed script that should automatically work for their lives like is did for Him: “Let's see, I put mud on his eyes, but nothing happened???”
Yet, the truth remains of what He has said of us, that cannot be revoked:
We are a pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim.3:15)
We are more than conquerors through Christ (Rom. 8:37)
We are the Body of Christ (1 Cor.12:27)
As Jesus is, so are we in this world (1 Jn 4:17)
We are partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4)
We are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)
We are sons of God (1 John 3:1)
The enemy might not be able to destroy the goal of every Christian (or of some nominal believers) to be like Jesus, but he has been able to place a threshold (or ceiling) on how MUCH we can be like Jesus. And he tries to pervert the means to arrive there.
For instance, if you believe you can NEVER overcome that besetting habit or sin of lust, anger, addiction, or gossip, (or even gain some level of victory), then you are already defeated!
If you wonder whether a demon (once you are confronted with one) will listen to you if you tell it to leave, then you have already lost the battle before you get there!
If you believe that the fruits of the Spirit (which can never appear from your own personal effort) are just a fleeting hope that never can be realized, then you will be stuck in the land of sinful-human nature living. You will never get out of Romans chapter 7 into Romans chapter 8. You will be chained in Galatians 5:19-21 and never able to live in Galatians 5:22-25. You will not “be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
If you believe that healing power only came through Jesus and a few of his close associates, thousands of years ago, then you will not step into a grace that brings a demonstration of the Spirit and power that he compels us to walk in. Instead, you will spend the rest of your life trying to theologically explain away the personal application of passages such as these: Mark 16:16-18; James 5:14; 1 Cor. 2:4; John 14:12, 15)
You will be trying to explain theologically why it's okay to not be like Jesus in some aspect of character, power, or authority, rather than continuing to grow into it and “be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (Eph. 5:1). You will dismiss this verse as an impossibility: “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 Jn 2:6) and make excuses for your unbelief.
Because all that means anything in terms of fruit and power in our lives is based upon BELIEF, not upon our efforts, even our efforts to self-evaluate our standard of “holiness” and apply some principle to our lives. What's worse – many are letting others evaluate it for them through man-made rules and social expectations (which are worse in the Church than the world). They are rooted in the fear of man and a religious spirit. Then we apply some kind of self-imposed religious actions to “make ourselves” more like Jesus – memorize a few more verses, spend more time praying, fasting, witnessing, going to services or conferences. Even worse than this, a great deal of Christians (even whole denominations) are under the oppression of a spirit of condemnation – a tricky devil that supplants and replaces the loving corrective voice of the Holy Spirit for a cruel taskmaster. They actually believe that this wicked, angry, oppressive voice is the voice of God's conviction! These all have a form of “godliness” without power (2 Tim.3:5). These “regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence”. (Col. 2:21-23)
We have to get out from under these yokes of bondage:
Self-evaluation, self-judgment (how we think we match up, whether we've sinned or not, what we think we need to do to correct it)
Self-effort, performance-based righteousness
A religious spirit of condemnation that masks itself like an angel of light
Fear of people and social expectations
Personal interpretation of Scriptures
These have to be replaced by a pure judgment:
Evaluation by the Holy Spirit and His correction and encouragement
HIS illumination of Scriptures that interprets us
Hearing His voice
Intimate, close communion with Him
His power and work in and through us that makes us like Jesus without any effort of our own
A clear picture of how the Father really sees us, especially in eternity.
Since righteousness is based upon faith (“the just shall live by faith” - Hab. 2:4), then any MEANINGFUL fruit that remains (John 15:16) in our lives comes from trusting HIM to do it, leaving aside our own works. Anything that amounts to “being more like Jesus” comes from His work inside of us, and us just trusting that work. When we begin again on our own to perfect ourselves, then we no longer abide in Him and we have strayed from the path of true righteousness.
“...for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.” (Heb. 4:10)
“For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13)
“How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (Gal.3:3)
“not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph. 2:9-10)
The difference is really in perspective – if you are focused on where you've come from, then you won't have much of a vision of where you are headed, or even where you are supposed to be now. If you can only see yourself as a “pardoned sinner”, how can you begin to imagine a perspective where God no longer sees any sin on you at all because of Jesus? How will you really believe you are a saint? How will you trust the power and provision of God that works in you to overcome sin (any sin to ANY degree) in your life? You won't. You will keep going around that bush, over and over again –
The enemy might not be able to destroy the goal of every Christian (or of some nominal believers) to be like Jesus, but he has been able to place a threshold (or ceiling) on how MUCH we can be like Jesus. And he tries to pervert the means to arrive there.
For instance, if you believe you can NEVER overcome that besetting habit or sin of lust, anger, addiction, or gossip, (or even gain some level of victory), then you are already defeated!
If you wonder whether a demon (once you are confronted with one) will listen to you if you tell it to leave, then you have already lost the battle before you get there!
If you believe that the fruits of the Spirit (which can never appear from your own personal effort) are just a fleeting hope that never can be realized, then you will be stuck in the land of sinful-human nature living. You will never get out of Romans chapter 7 into Romans chapter 8. You will be chained in Galatians 5:19-21 and never able to live in Galatians 5:22-25. You will not “be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
If you believe that healing power only came through Jesus and a few of his close associates, thousands of years ago, then you will not step into a grace that brings a demonstration of the Spirit and power that he compels us to walk in. Instead, you will spend the rest of your life trying to theologically explain away the personal application of passages such as these: Mark 16:16-18; James 5:14; 1 Cor. 2:4; John 14:12, 15)
You will be trying to explain theologically why it's okay to not be like Jesus in some aspect of character, power, or authority, rather than continuing to grow into it and “be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (Eph. 5:1). You will dismiss this verse as an impossibility: “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 Jn 2:6) and make excuses for your unbelief.
Because all that means anything in terms of fruit and power in our lives is based upon BELIEF, not upon our efforts, even our efforts to self-evaluate our standard of “holiness” and apply some principle to our lives. What's worse – many are letting others evaluate it for them through man-made rules and social expectations (which are worse in the Church than the world). They are rooted in the fear of man and a religious spirit. Then we apply some kind of self-imposed religious actions to “make ourselves” more like Jesus – memorize a few more verses, spend more time praying, fasting, witnessing, going to services or conferences. Even worse than this, a great deal of Christians (even whole denominations) are under the oppression of a spirit of condemnation – a tricky devil that supplants and replaces the loving corrective voice of the Holy Spirit for a cruel taskmaster. They actually believe that this wicked, angry, oppressive voice is the voice of God's conviction! These all have a form of “godliness” without power (2 Tim.3:5). These “regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence”. (Col. 2:21-23)
We have to get out from under these yokes of bondage:
Self-evaluation, self-judgment (how we think we match up, whether we've sinned or not, what we think we need to do to correct it)
Self-effort, performance-based righteousness
A religious spirit of condemnation that masks itself like an angel of light
Fear of people and social expectations
Personal interpretation of Scriptures
These have to be replaced by a pure judgment:
Evaluation by the Holy Spirit and His correction and encouragement
HIS illumination of Scriptures that interprets us
Hearing His voice
Intimate, close communion with Him
His power and work in and through us that makes us like Jesus without any effort of our own
A clear picture of how the Father really sees us, especially in eternity.
Since righteousness is based upon faith (“the just shall live by faith” - Hab. 2:4), then any MEANINGFUL fruit that remains (John 15:16) in our lives comes from trusting HIM to do it, leaving aside our own works. Anything that amounts to “being more like Jesus” comes from His work inside of us, and us just trusting that work. When we begin again on our own to perfect ourselves, then we no longer abide in Him and we have strayed from the path of true righteousness.
“...for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.” (Heb. 4:10)
“For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13)
“How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (Gal.3:3)
“not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph. 2:9-10)
The difference is really in perspective – if you are focused on where you've come from, then you won't have much of a vision of where you are headed, or even where you are supposed to be now. If you can only see yourself as a “pardoned sinner”, how can you begin to imagine a perspective where God no longer sees any sin on you at all because of Jesus? How will you really believe you are a saint? How will you trust the power and provision of God that works in you to overcome sin (any sin to ANY degree) in your life? You won't. You will keep going around that bush, over and over again –
sin-guilt-condemnation-inner vows/
promises-human effort-breaking promises/
sin-more guilt-condemnation
(repeat ...).
I've lived it a few thousand times in my life, until God broke through my religious cycle of trying to overcome sin in my own effort.
The answer, I found, was simple: God's unending love and the power of His Spirit in me.
TRUST.
FAITH.
BELIEF.
No more striving, no more inner vows and promises. Just walking it out, knowing that He was for me, not against me, and that He wanted victory in my life more than I did. That through Him, I was already more than a conqueror, and my identity was wrapped up inside of Him. “It is no longer I that live, but Christ in me.” (Gal. 2:20)
I began to live FROM a place of WHO HE HAS CALLED ME TO BE, and NOT from a place of where I've come from or even where I am now. I began to live my life as someone HE has declared already is “seated with Christ in heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6), instead of someone who only hopes to taste heaven someday. It is in beholding Jesus that we are transformed to be like Him (2 Cor. 3 18, not in when we focus and over-process and dwell upon how much we constantly miss it all the time. When we have the hope of being like him, then this is the process of faith that works righteousness (purity inside of us). ( 1 Jn 3:2-3)
The answer, I found, was simple: God's unending love and the power of His Spirit in me.
TRUST.
FAITH.
BELIEF.
No more striving, no more inner vows and promises. Just walking it out, knowing that He was for me, not against me, and that He wanted victory in my life more than I did. That through Him, I was already more than a conqueror, and my identity was wrapped up inside of Him. “It is no longer I that live, but Christ in me.” (Gal. 2:20)
I began to live FROM a place of WHO HE HAS CALLED ME TO BE, and NOT from a place of where I've come from or even where I am now. I began to live my life as someone HE has declared already is “seated with Christ in heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6), instead of someone who only hopes to taste heaven someday. It is in beholding Jesus that we are transformed to be like Him (2 Cor. 3 18, not in when we focus and over-process and dwell upon how much we constantly miss it all the time. When we have the hope of being like him, then this is the process of faith that works righteousness (purity inside of us). ( 1 Jn 3:2-3)
John 10:34-36
Psalm 82:6
1 John 3:1
1 John 4:17
1 Corinthians 12:12
John 17:21-23
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