HOW DO I ADOPT THE LIFESTYLE OF JESUS?

 Summary: Any retelling of the life of Jesus Christ will fall far short of doing it justice. Learning the facts of Jesus’ life and ministry will whet your appetite to learn more. Understanding Christ is the foundation for understanding true Christianity, which is believing and living by Christ’s teachings and striving to imitate His perfect life.

As Christians, we are called to imitate Jesus in all aspects of our life. It has spurred an often-asked question of “What would Jesus do?” in any given situation. While being completely like Jesus is way above our pay grade, some specific traits of Jesus can help us imitate Him in our own lives. It is no different than learning the core competencies of our profession.  If you are a firefighter, you must learn how to fight fires. Accountants must master the bookkeeping skills involved with accounting, and teachers must master the skills to enable children to learn.

 When Jesus called His twelve disciples and began to train them to make more disciples, He trained them in specific areas, like a master training a group of apprentices, so they could carry on the work that He started. Then, as now, a disciple must develop the competencies of Jesus by becoming like Him on the outside. He knew he couldn’t teach them everything, so He focused on some key competencies that still apply to us today.

Jesus’ time with His disciples and on earth was short. He knew that He must invest His time wisely. He knew he must prepare His key followers for what lay ahead. He must reproduce His influence, teaching, and ministry. So He withdrew from the crowds to personally teach His closest and key followers. Jesus taught us to invest in others, who in turn would invest in others, who in turn… invested in us

From the beginning, Jesus told the disciples that He would make them into something different: “Come, follow me,…and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Their occupation of catching fish changed into a mission of fishing for people. At each step along the way, Jesus taught them to share with others, connect people to God, and minister to those in need. Those competencies include a deep personal relationship with God through prayer and Bible study, actively sharing the Gospel with others, demonstrating love and compassion, living a life aligned with God’s teachings, serving others, and actively seeking to grow in their faith, essentially, embodying the character of Christ through daily actions and decisions.

It is not easy to model our lives after Jesus, but we can learn to make disciples as Jesus made. After all, if we obey everything Jesus commanded, we, too, will learn to replicate the process by which we became His disciples.  It is a natural process: we follow Jesus, Jesus changes us, and—as we follow the one who spent His time making disciples—we, too, commit to make disciples as He did. Loving people as Jesus loved people through service means that we want to see people come to faith in Jesus and live as He did.

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the most practical way of adopting Jesus’s lifestyle this week?
2. If we want more of God’s peace, we need to adopt Jesus’s lifestyle. Agree or disagree, and why?