As Christians we use a lot of words or statements that are true, but after a while, we have forgotten why those statements are so significant. A few days ago, I was reading a devotional that was exhorting people to persevere in their faith because perseverance molds us into the image of Jesus. As I continued reading, the thought occurred to me, “Why do I need to look like Jesus?”
Jesus accepted us the way we were, and His blood washed away our sins. This means if the day of your salvation is the last day of your life, you will go to be with Him without ever looking like Him on this side of eternity. This tells us that looking like Jesus doesn’t make us anymore acceptable to God.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Romans 8:29
Clearly, the scripture tells us that it is the Lord’s design and desire for us to look like Jesus, but why is this important?
First of all, we need to look like Jesus in order to be freed up from our past behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and start living life from a spiritual perspective. This can also be called sanctification. We come out of the world and worldliness, and we take on more kingdom mindset. This allows us to enjoy the benefit of our salvation by continually being freed up from our soulish desires. This also gives us the strength to not fall prey to the enemy’s temptations because the things that so easily and quickly affected us in the past don’t have that kind of hold on us any longer.
Secondly, we need to look like Jesus, so we can fulfill the great commission. In order for us to effectively reach a lost world, we need to have a heart and mind like Jesus. This is the only way we can reach the lost with His love. The more we look like Jesus, our words and our actions will be in congruence. We don’t get impatient with people who don’t see it our way. Instead of people seeing a hypocrite or someone trying to jam Christianity down their throat, they will see people whose lives speak of God’s love and their words match up with their lifestyle. People will be drawn to us because of Jesus in us. We don’t want people to be drawn to us because of our wealth, success, charm, beauty, or intelligence. We want them to be drawn to Jesus in us because He is the one who can make them whole and give them eternal life. All our great qualities cannot produce eternal life for someone else.
Let’s pray for ourselves and the body of Christ that we are willing to go through the process to look more like Jesus as there are so many lives at stake. When we are willing to be formed in the image of Jesus, we bring hope to a hopeless world!! The world needs us to look more like Jesus!!!