It's Too Hard to Live Like Jesus

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. Colossians 2:9-10


We attended church with my parents a couple of weeks ago in Topeka, Kansas. Our family has been a part of this church since 1969. I stayed after to catch up with a few people that I’ve known forever and a few that I had just met. As I was walking out to the car, a man that I never met stopped me and asked, “Are you Rudy White’s son?” I told him that I was. He said, “I could tell by the way you walk. You walk just like your dad.”


I walk just like my dad? My dad is 70 years old. I walk like a 70-year-old man? I’ve got to get into shape.


I asked my dad about our obviously peculiar gait. He said that he had never noticed. I guess you really don’t notice how you walk. It’s a little difficult to walk and watch yourself walking at the same time. I suppose as long as my dad and I can avoid walking with canes, we’re doing okay.

Jesus didn’t just resemble His Father. All of the fullness of God was and is in Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, you don’t need to go any further than Jesus. Read the Gospels and see what God thinks about us, about the lost, about the poor, and about the self-righteous. In Jesus we see what God does about broken people and broken lives. We see how God empowers His followers to serve others. We see how much God loves us in Jesus’ death on the cross.


Once the relationship between people and God was marred by sin, we just didn’t get it from that point forward. God gave kings and judges who were met with mixed reviews. He sent other nations to conquer His people, but they didn’t always get the message. God sent prophets that His people persecuted. Then, God sent His Son.


What we didn’t understand from reading God’s instructions or listening to God’s Word, we could see in the person of Jesus. He was the Word made flesh (John 1:14). If we want to know what a human being, full of God, looks like. We can look at Jesus.


If we want to be a human being filled with God, then we need to depend on Jesus. Paul writes, “you have been given fullness in Christ” (Colossians 2:10). To be the child of God that you long to be, you only need to depend on Jesus. You can’t attain this for yourself. No amount of human effort will get you there. The goal is not to live like Jesus. The goal is to allow Jesus to live His life through us. There’s a difference.


How much are you trying to live like Jesus? How much is Jesus living through you? Ask Him to help you experience the fullness of God.


Eugene Peterson paraphrases this passage: Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything. Colossians 2:9-10 (Msg)




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