For the last six weeks we, at Kairos, have been embarking on a series of teachings entitled “I want to be like Jesus.....”. Wanting to be like Jesus is something Christians have been singing and talking about for centuries now. How many times have we prayed “Jesus forgive me for being me, make me more like you”. It seems like a good prayer, very spiritual and holy sounding but we need to know what we mean by it if we actually want to see the answer to this prayer in our lives. What is it about Jesus that we want to be more like? Do we want to be more Jewish? Be a better storyteller? Walk around Palestine more?When you've been around Christian teachings for a long time certain concepts become so familiar they become meaningless. They lose their impact and we begin to take them for granted. "Of course God became fully human and lived on the earth for 33 years at some random time in history! Why not?" How is it that we are not completely bowled over by the fact that God was once a baby!! A baby!! With nappies and tears and giggles and feeding in the middle of the night! It's astounding! It's revolutionary! Sometimes I think the problem with the Christian message is that we've heard it too many times! We first hear the story of baby Jesus when we are nothing but babies ourselves and so it becomes part of life, the Christmas Story. Whether we believe it or not we rarely stop to think about the craziness of such a story, the meaning behind it. We don't question what it says about God that He should act in this way, or ask how this affects our perception of Him.
And so we embrace the concept of being like Jesus. “Of course I want to be like Jesus...... why wouldn't I...... he was a good guy right?”. And we pray “Lord make me more like you”! But the thing is God has already done all the "making" He's ever going to when it come to us. He formed us in the womb, we are made in His image...... the rest is up to us! He will help us by his Spirit to be all that we can be if we ask Him, but we're the ones who get to decide what kind of person we will be, He will not force us. We choose whether we will be loving and kind and generous or self-centred and fearful; do we want His nature to be our nature? Ok so this choice never turns out to be as straightforward as it sounds but if we truly want to follow God, to be more like Jesus, we have to know what he was like and seek to be like that in our own lives. We have to realise who we are, who he is, and decide to make changes. Yes, God will help us as we strive to develop certain aspects of our character, but we have to know what we are aiming towards if we are going to do our part. It's meaningless to simply ask God to make us more like Him without thinking about what He is actually like, and truly comprehending what it is about Him that we want to see more of in our own lives.
It's been an interesting journey so far. In fact, what's been so special about this series is that each week we have heard from a different speaker sharing their own personal perspective on what it is about Jesus that inspires them to want to be more like Him. We are all different, God made us that way, and He's not interested in transforming us all into Jesus drones. He wants each of us to discover Him for ourselves. To see in Jesus something that inspires us to be the very best version of ourselves that we can be, and, in seeking His help to become more like Him, bringing more of His Kingdom to earth.
So...... what is it? What is it about Jesus that inspires you? If there was one way in which you personally could be more like Him what would it be? Think about it. And if you can't come up with an answer, read the gospels again, take a fresh look at who Jesus was. And if you still can't come up with an answer then join us at Kairos on Sunday mornings at 10am and find out what's so special about this Jesus character that makes everyone want to be like Him so much :-)!
