This is a tall order. However, John tells us “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John. 2:6). So we see that NOT trying to imitate Jesus is not really an option for Christians. But how can we go about this?
The Bible tells us that we have to grow up. Just as in our biological bodies, our goal as disciples of Jesus is to grow to maturity (Ephesians 4:13; Colossians 4:12). The writer of the book of Hebrews criticizes those believers who don’t grow up. “You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:12-14).
Having said this, we need to understand that everyone starts with milk. Some of us are at such an early stage in our development in the faith that we need milk. Who would give porterhouse to an infant? It is no shame to be an infant in the faith. Every disciple of Jesus has been there.
Even Jesus had to grow up. The Bible tells us “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52).
Jesus would have grown up like any Jewish boy in his day. That is, he would have been learning God’s word at the Synagogue. This study served him well when he was tempted as an adult in the wilderness. The devil quoted scripture to him, but Jesus knew scripture also, and refuted the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). We would do well to imitate Jesus in this way.
If we follow the biological model, we see that one of the ways that we grow is by eating. So too in our spiritual lives, as we feed on the word of God. The fact of the matter is that we are feeding on something all of the time. However, most of what we feed on spiritually would be classified as junk food. That’s because we are all inundated with the world’s perspective on life. We are eating at the world’s table. And how can we not, given that we live and work in the world?
If you are what you eat, then many of us are Twinkees (at least spiritually speaking). We are eating the world’s unhealthy diet and so we are becoming like the world. We need to counter this by eating something better, if we are to grow to be healthy. This is why it is so important to develop a daily practice of hearing from God by feeding on his word.
This is quite the challenge for some of us. If you are not a reader, this may be difficult. However, there are ways around this. You can get the Bible on CD to listen to in your car, or you could have someone else read it to you so that you would both benefit. Another challenge is setting aside the time to do it. But this is just a matter of priorities. Like making ourselves go to the gym, sit down and study for school, or simply getting ourselves out of bed in the morning to go to work, this is a habit that we can develop.
Of course, it does no good to simply hear God’s word. We must put it into practice. The Lord’s brother told us “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like” (James 1:23-24). The next step is to carefully consider how what you have read applies to you, and then make an attempt to put it into practice.
We’re going to fail, of course. Everyone does. Sin hasn’t given up the fight for us yet. Even the apostle Paul admitted he was not what he wanted to be when he said “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 4:12). But the more we work at growing up, the more we will grow up.
Here are some suggestions for Bible study.
- Begin with one of the Gospels. If Jesus is our model for life, we would do well to learn more about him.
- Try the Lectio Divina model of reading (see the Lectio Divina page to the right in this BLOG).
- If you have no background in the Bible to give you any frame of reference, try purchasing a basic guide to the Bible. Two good ones are “A Newcomers Guide to the Bible” and “The Bible for Dummies”.
