Are You Ready to be Like Jesus?

The mother of James and John, two of Jesus' disciples, showed up one day and begged Jesus to save places for her sons at His left and His right in heaven. Jesus said that the family did not understand what they were requesting. He asked whether James and John were ready to drink from His cup and go through the baptism He would experience.

"Yes, we are!" said James and John (Matthew 20:22b, CEV).

Were they ready? Am I?

Faith is not just a matter of accepting Jesus as the Savior He claims to be, but about being able to crucify or deny our natural human desires as he did and to bear the grief He bore. Faith in Jesus is not only belief but loyalty and identification with Jesus--faithfulness.

I believe that God has given me all I need to be like Jesus, but I fully admit that the thought of doing what it would take to fulfill that potential terrifies and saddens me. I wonder if that is the feeling that Adam and Eve hoped the forbidden fruit would assuage. I don't know that, but I know categorically that every fiber of my being needs Jesus as my stand-in and redeemer.

Jesus is the first-born in the family of God. Romans 8:29 (NLT) informs us, "For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters." The world had to wait many years for Christ to come and show us how to behave as members of our Father's family, but Ephesians 1:5 (NLT) tells us, "His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure."

Until you know Jesus, the Bible may sound like a fairy tale: The Great God formed a family for Himself out of dirt and blew His own breath into them. He created an entire universe to supply and amaze them with more than they need. He provided them water, fruits, vegetables, herbs, and meat; fur, silk, cotton, and wool; stone, dirt, grass and wood--all the ingredients for food, clothing and shelter. He gave them flowers and snowflakes, sex and sunsets. He gave them rules for an everlasting, peaceful life, and when they messed up...God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. (John 3:16, CEV)

Are any of us ready to be like Jesus?

(Photograph by Dimitri Castrique)