By Practical Christianity Foundation, (PCF)
(Continued from April 8, 2015.)
As stated last week, the concept of Christ-likeness and Christian living is probably one of the most misunderstood principles of the Christian faith. We were also reminded that we are not and will never be “little Christs!” There is nothing in our lives that would make us a suitable sacrifice for the sins of others. Only Jesus could do that!
The same article reminded us that living “in Christ” brings about a transformation in the believer’s life that reflects the fact that Christ does indeed live in us. But, apart from Christ and on our own, we are certainly not holy! We are not righteous! We are not sinless! We are not obedient to the Father! The truth is that Christ is our holiness. He is our righteousness! He is our sinlessness! He is our obedience to the Father.
So how do we, as redeemed sinners who are in the process of “working out our salvation with fear and trembling”, have any hope of living this thing we call “the Christian life?” How do we live in the environment of our forgiven sin, and still have the boldness to say that we should live in a way that reflects our Christian faith?
The answer probably lies best in the idea that we should serve one another. Is this not the premise upon which Jesus’ entry into His own creation is founded?
6(Jesus), who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:6–7.
Certainly Jesus gave us the best example of what it means to be a servant. The gospel narratives overflow with the stories of the way in which Jesus, though He was the Son of God, served the people He came to save. At the last supper, He knelt like a household servant before His disciples and bathed their feet, urging them to conduct themselves toward one another in the same manner. He reminded His disciples that He came not to be served, but to serve. He also reminded them that the servant was not greater than the master. In that sense, they were to serve the Kingdom of God by serving each other. More importantly, they were to serve their Lord by going into all the world and making disciples of all nations.
Jesus also exhorted His disciples during the same supper, to love one another with a sacrificial care which He expressed through entering His creation in the form of a human being, the life He lived among fallen men yet without sin, and in laying down His life willingly to become the way to salvation. In essence, Jesus showed us the only way to live the Christian life is through love and service to one another.
The prevailing characteristic of the sin nature is that we are self-absorbed, whereas the predominant characteristic of our redeemed nature is that we are “other-focused. This is exactly what Jesus did for us when He obeyed His Father’s will and died for the sins of the world.
Should we do any less? Not if the mind which was in Christ is also in us!
