I would be like Jesus?

Following Jesus’ example isn’t always the easiest thing to do—we face a lot of challenges when we try to live a life according to His plan. .

Sometimes, I must confess, I wish following Jesus was easier. It is not that the gospel is complicated or that forgiveness is hard to earn, but following Jesus means following a challenging example.

The Jesus we meet in the Bible provides us with the security of God’s love, and then asks us to step out of our comfort zone for the sake of those around us. His command to love our neighbours, and even our enemies, strongly contradicts our natural human attitude of “me first.”

Jesus certainly practised what he taught. All through the Gospels we find Him talking with the oppressed, healing the sick and finding the lost. He touched the untouchable and loved the unlovable, always putting others before His own safety and reputation.

The challenge to live according to this example is serious. In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus describes two kinds of people. Both groups acknowledge Him as Lord, but only one group is invited to enter eternity with Him. In the parable, the group invited into eternal joy had fed the hungry, clothed the naked, given drink to the thirsty, included the stranger, cared for the sick and visited the imprisoned. The other group hadn’t.

This story sometimes scares me because the life it calls me to live is so demanding. But God never tries to keep us out of eternal life—in fact He offers to help us in our goal to live as Christians. God, with our permission, works on us from the inside outwards to reform us into the image of Himself that we were created to be. By entering into the Christian life, we choose to begin this lifelong process.

Jesus told us that it is better to live out our belief in Him than to simply say we love and know Him. We are called to say it often without using words: to both believe in Christ and live the life.