Be More and More Like Christ

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/02/like-our-great-teacher

As mentioned in my commentary yesterday, https://ronnielim.com/2023/02/01/blessings-in-the-tears/, our quest post acceptance of Christ is to be more and more like Him in terms of our service and our hearts. There are, of course, various aspects of Christ that we can imitate and become, and I believe most are attainable despite our humanity. Even if some may be unattainable in our own strength, we have the Helper, the Holy Spirit, in our midst strengthening and empowering us along.

There are many facets to Christ that we can imitate, like His patience, His compassion, His love (although His agape love may be a very high bar indeed!), His humility, His kindness and generosity, His faithfulness (in general as well as towards His calling on the cross), His overcoming disposition (when confronted with temptations), His conquering spirit (He is the Lion of Judah), His sense of God’s timing, His praying and prayerful nature, His sensitivity to the move and will of God, His discernment and I’m sure many others.

This morning, as the ODB article points us to, we want to just focus on His loving and generous nature. As part of our life transformation in Christ, can we all work at being more loving and generous? Love our neighbour as we love ourselves and even those who hate us, who betrayed us, who back-stabbed us, or who did evil to us. Can we do that? Can we love our enemies? It’s tough, but we must forgive as the Father forgives us our transgressions. Time will heal the pain and our broken hearts, but forgive we must if we want to imitate Christ and be more like Him.

Generosity is the other facet of Christ that we can imitate. I think in this context, generosity is not limited to just money, although that’s a good start. I think one way to be more generous is to know and accept that what we have is due to the blessings of God upon our lives, notwithstanding our hard work. It is the covering of God that ensures that our hard work is appropriately rewarded. That our cultivation of our land yields a good crop. Thus, we should bless and help others as the Lord leads and prompts us. May we be a vessel for the blessings of God to flow through the generosity of our hearts? But generosity is not just about money. We should be generous in the giving of our time, our talents, our intellect, our skills. Let’s be generous to sow all that we have into the Kingdom of God.

The point in today’s message is that first, we must want to be transformed to be more like Christ, more and more each day. Then, start with a few lower hanging fruits. Be more loving and more generous. Focus on these two, and we are on the way to a transformed life in Christ! As we practice what Jesus taught, we will see a refreshing change in our lives, and that will propel us to greater heights in our quest to imitate and be more like Christ!