Free to be Christlike

Freedom from and freedom to are very different. You are free to fly in the fact that nothing is holding you down, however, you are not free to fly because you lack the ability to fly. A person is free to get married in the fact that once they are of age no one can stop them, but a person is not free to have a great, happy, satisfying marriage if he/she lacks the relational abilities to do so. I am free from any restraints to run a marathon, however, I am not free to run it because I am not in shape. Therefore, if I have the vision to run a marathon, then I intend on running the marathon, I will then employ the means to prepare me to run the marathon. This would include training over a period of time. Training is the the intentional, direct effort over a period of time that prepares me to do what I could not do by trying. Now this is true of many things: playing an instrument, singing, the arts, speaking, etc. I cannot try harder (exert more energy) and play Beethoven, but I can practice and in time play Beethoven.

Now why is it when it comes to being like Christ we lose such common sense? No where else in life would I desire to have the same results as certain person and go about getting those results by practicing nothing they did. You see we have been taught that grace means you cannot apply effort or it's works. This is not true. Grace is not opposed to effort but opposed to earning. Effort is action, earning is attitude. I did not earn a marathon by training for it.

Being like Christ seems difficult to us because we try to be like Him in the moment of conflict. In the moment of my enemy's hate I try to love him and find it as difficult as trying to play Beethoven without any prior knowledge of the piano. Therefore, we read that His yoke is easy but experience it as impossible. We read His commands are not burdensome but our experience tells something different. So, we decide not to try and reduce grace down to the willingness of God to overlook my failures but do not expect grace to empower me to change. We end up with a church culture where it is actually a common practice and expectation to be a Christian and not be Christlike.

There must be a restoration of the way of Christ to the church. A way of living not legalistic and religious but empowering and precise. A way in which produces people who act like Christ by nature because they have been transformed. The fact that many think becoming Christlike is impossible gives evidence to how far our thinking has come from the apostle Paul who actually and literally meant "to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Now most people think of Jesus as nice, polite, good but very few would say intelligent. In our list of the smartest people of all time we do not place Jesus on the list. We tend to still view Him through the Sunday school flannel board image. The long blond haired, limp wristed, candy bar after class, nice guy but not a genius who actually brought with Him the total answer to mans total need. I actually think Jesus and the apostle Paul were/are greater thinkers then Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and I'll give you reasons.

Plato's Republic written 380 b.c. tells of a system that can govern free people. He speaks of just men and labors to define what that means. He concludes that a man who rules a city that prospers must be a man of virtue and justice. His conversations help us understand that righteous rule is when a man can govern not for his own interest but the interest of the people.

Now Plato's conclusions are historically pivotal and have been used for centuries. Plato concludes that righteous, good, just men in leadership is what is needed for a city-state to prosper. He is simply stating what Solomon told us a thousand years prior to him: when the righteous rule the people rejoice. Herein lies the problem: what do you do when there are no righteous men? Or insufficient number of them to rule? How does one become righteous and good?; not men who are able to do a good act but men who's dominating character of their life is good.

You see Jesus actually brought with Him a way that can actually produces righteous people. Not positionally righteous people but literally and practically righteous people. People who do good because it is who they are. The Apostle Paul proved that after Jesus' ascension a person could still become a new kind of person, living a new kind of life through Jesus and His way. A life not from this world but a life from above. A life that could actually bring the rule of heaven practically to the earth.

Jesus and Paul actually brought answers to some of the most profound questions of their day and all of human history. This is why philosophers and intellectuals came to the way of Jesus and the kingdom of God in droves because He alone answered the questions that wisdom demands answered. We have lost this way of life and it must be regained. I'll speak more on this matter in following posts