How to Imitate Christ
Have you ever had someone tell you that you need to imitate Christ? When I was growing up, it seemed like that was the message I heard all the time. Read the gospels and imitate Jesus with your life.
Behave like Him. Serve like Him. Love like Him. Give like Him. Evangelize like Him. Whatever you see Jesus doing, just imitate Him. Be more like Jesus.
It sounds good. Jesus lived a perfect life so we should try to be like Jesus, right?
Wrong. Jesus didn’t leave the glory and riches of Heaven to come to the earth so that we’d copy His behavior.
If we are to imitate the way that Jesus lived His life, then we are to imitate His dependency on God the Father to live His human life.
Imitate Jesus’ Dependency on God
The life we see Jesus living in the gospels is a life of dependence.
Jesus talked about this in John 5:19.
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Jesus was fully God and fully human when He walked this planet. While He maintained His status as God and was fully God in every way, He made it as if it was no account.
Paul affirms this in Philippians 2:6-7.
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing.
Jesus gave up His divine prerogatives. He lived as a human being completely dependent on His Father (with whom He was in a spiritual union) to work in Him and through Him.
Each time you see Jesus behave a certain way, it was God the Father doing it through Him. When you see Jesus loving people, serving others, and teaching truth, it was God the Father doing it through Him.
Jesus made himself nothing by becoming a branch. God was the Vine, and Jesus became a branch. As He abided in the Father, the life-giving stuff from the Vine came through Him as a branch.
We see the divine Life of God the Father being manifested through Jesus as a human being. Jesus was still fully God, but He made His deity as if it was no account. He didn’t use it to His advantage. He made Himself a branch and lived dependently on His Father (The Vine).
The model Jesus set up for us was not, “Watch me and imitate my behavior.”
The model was, “Watch how I allow My Father to work in me and through me. Watch how I live a life of dependence on Him.”
Why? Because this is what Jesus would do in you and through you after the cross!
Jesus as your Source
As we see from the creation account in the garden, you were created to live dependently on God. He was always meant to be your Source. You were created to be a branch, drawing Life from the Vine. But sin messed that up and separated you from Him.
That’s why Jesus had to come to the earth. He had to reattach you to the Vine.
The only way to do that was to take your sin to the cross and pay the penalty for it so that you could be forgiven. Once you are forgiven by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, then you are reattached to the Vine as the Spirit comes to dwell in you.
Once you are reattached to the Vine, you are able to now live with Jesus as your Source. What is your response at that point? To imitate Jesus by living dependently as He did during His earthly life. To say, “I can do nothing by myself but only what Jesus does in me and through me.”
As you live dependently on Jesus, He produces certain behaviors through you. He loves people through you. He serves others through you. He evangelizes unbelievers through you.
It’s not up to you to try and imitate His behaviors; it’s up to Him to produce those through you.
Branches don’t produce things. The Vine produces them through the branch.
To try and imitate Jesus’ behavior and actions is to live as if you are not attached to Him. You watch Him from a distance and then try to make yourself look like Him. You are trying to manufacture those behaviors and actions in your life.
But you are attached to Jesus, so your job is not to imitate His behavior and actions but to make yourself available for Him to produce those behaviors and actions through you.
Radical Availability
When Jesus revealed to us that He couldn’t do anything unless the Father did it through Him, He was showing us that He was radically available for everything the Father guided and empowered Him to do.
That is your role as well. You are already abiding in Jesus. He is the Vine and you are attached to Him as a branch. To abide in your abiding just means to be radically available for what He is doing in you and through you.
Keep your eyes open to see where He is leading you. Keep your ears open to hear what He is saying to you. As you hear His voice and see Him opening doors for you, say, “I’m available and I’m trusting that as I go, it’s You that’s going to do the behaving and acting in me and through me.”