Christlikeness

First day of the month!  It's a great day to post on godly things.

My dad and I are going through a study together on Christlikeness.  The author addressed what gets in the way of Christlikeness - pride and selfishness.  He then wrote about what God's will for Christians are (Christian men in particular).  He finally wrote about how to get to where we need to be (which is following Christ's example), and he said this profound statement:

"The emphasis of this word (typos, Greek for "example") is not necessarily on the perfection of the resulting copy, but rather on the careful attention given to the perfect example and on the determined purpose of following it."

Those two phrases got my attention and I'm trying to keep this in my mind.  We need to give careful attention to Christ as the perfect example - this is as simple as asking the question, "what would Jesus do?"  But beyond simply looking at the perfect example, we must have the determined purpose to be like Him.

Later in the chapter, the writer mentions that before a builder builds, he does surveying first.  The same is true for Christians.  We should take a look at our lives, and see what needs to be built - what is lacking that needs to be built in your life?

There are three steps here.  1) Consider your life, 2) Compare it to Christ, 3) Be determined to follow Christ - build your life to make it look like Jesus.  Give careful attention to Christ, and have a determined purpose to follow Him as your example.

Luke