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We say we want to be like Jesus. But do we really?
I personally want only the parts I like. He goes some places I don’t want to go. He hangs out with people who don’t sound like my kind of people.
He has experiences I do not want. Up close encounters with the devil. Threats. Rejection. Being called names. Denial. Betrayal.
And suffering … big time suffering in His Body. It was not just the pain from torture and crucifixion. Even though He seemed not to have been sick during the time of His Teaching Ministry, Jesus then carried all the sickness and infirmities with Him to the cross.
He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.
Matthew 8:17
If you want to be like Jesus, know what you are signing up for.
It is a nice thought to believe Jesus took care of all the messy stuff so we would not have to. But life does not work that way.
He is not a one and done kind of guy. He is still at work today, doing exactly what He did in The Body of Jesus, but now in new bodies everywhere.
When He said, even greater things would happen because He was going to His Father, He meant it. What was being seen in one body was about to be expanded into multiple bodies all over the world and through all times.
Jesus said,
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to The Father.”
John 14:12
I have really been grappling with this realization in the past weeks. I kept arguing with God that I wanted my life back … the life I thought was mine.
Instead of giving me what I wanted, He took me to place after place I did not want to go. Even as I recognized His wonderful ongoing Presence and blessing after blessing, I kicked and screamed the whole way.
He said simply, “I don’t follow you. You follow Me. I am not going with you. You are going with Me.”
And so it is. I am still learning. One minute I think I’ve got it. The next minute I don’t.
Last night, he reminded me of all the obsessive end of life planning I did more than a year ago. I think I heard Him chuckle.
He said, “You were preparing for death. I am preparing you for Life — My Life in you.”
He added,
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”
John 15:13-14
He further explained, “I am not asking you to die. I am asking you to lay down the life you are planning and let Me live My Life in you.”
He is offering that to you too. Do you want Jesus’ Life?
Jesus’ Life was not a Life of all doom and gloom. There were some real joyful adventures. And the living happily ever after sounds really promising!
Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His Glory.
Romans 8:17-18
You are in Me and I am in you!
John 14:20
