ACTING LIKE JESUS

The following is excerpted from an essay by Tom Letchworth, entitled "If All The World's a Stage." Early in his essay, Letchworth writes:

Jesus himself gave us direction in our role play: "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16: 24). We are to step into his role. Paul says, "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). More to the point, he says, "Be imitators of God as dear children" (Ephesians 5:1).

He later writes this:

If we study the life of Jesus, if we think and act like Jesus, if we contextualize that life in our own lives, we will begin to become the ‘Little Christs’ of which Luther spoke. Just one catch. I defy anyone to do this, under their own power.

I've tried. I've seen others try. Trying to live the life of Christ under your own power leads to futility, frustration and failure. Either we become involuted narcissists, constantly asking ourselves "how'm I doing, how'm I doing?" and growing less and less interested in others; or, we become legalistic Pharisees about the very acts and thoughts that should liberate us. Or, worse, we become both of the above-Narcissistic Pharisees.

No, the only way to live Christ's life is to allow Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to dwell in us. We begin, no matter where we are on the spiritual journey, with a repeated act of surrender that imitates Christ in Gethsemane: "Not my will, but Thine be done."

God doesn't wish to obliterate our personality. I've met too many diverse characters and eccentrics who joyfully follow Christ to believe that. What I believe he does want to do is to live his life through us and in us in such a way that the gifts and strengths of our own personality are transformed "by the renewing of our minds."

And, when we have immersed ourselves in the story of Jesus, learned to think and to act like Jesus, forgotten about ourselves; and when Jesus lives his life in and through us, then we will play the greatest role of our lives, and in the lives of others.

(This essay was originally recovered from

http://www.francisasburysociety.com/hcworldstage.htm,
but that link no longer seems to work.)