What does it mean to imitate Jesus?

Colossians 2:6 admonishes us to walk in Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul encourages us to imitate him as he imitates Christ. Philippians 1:20 talks about Christ being magnified in our bodies. All of these verses are telling us the same thing: we need to look like Jesus. To a lost and dying world, we are to be Jesus. Reaching out. Helping. Healing.

The problem is, so many within our world are reaching out as Jesus’ hands and feet, but they look nothing like Jesus. And before you start thinking it’s just the world, it’s not. So many who call themselves New Testament Christians are doing the same thing: giving a false representation of Christ.

There are at least ways we can misrepresent Jesus. We’ll break it down in these two ways: not embracing what He embraces and practicing what He doesn’t practice. Let’s start with the latter.

Practicing what He doesn’t practice.

Jesus was our perfect example. He lived a sinless life upon this earth, even while being tempted directly by Satan in the wilderness. Even while hanging on a cross while the ones He was dying for cursed at Him and spat on Him and mocked Him. He suffered in silence. He rebutted temptation with Scripture. He loved much and had compassion on all those He encountered. But Jesus didn’t tolerate sin.

We can’t claim to be Jesus’ hands and feet if we’re doing things He never did. Jesus never lived in a way that God said not to. Jesus never embraced those who were sinners and told them it was fine if they remained that way. Instead, Jesus changed people. He challenged people. He reached out and opened His loving arms to them, but He called them to something better. He told the woman caught in adultery to sin no more. Those cheating and lying or professing false holiness, He called to a better way. Jesus came to save the lost from their sins, but not IN their sins (Matthew 1:21, Luke 19:10).

We aren’t imitating Jesus if we claim to love God and follow God but we engage in activities God prohibits. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21 give good (though not exhaustive) lists of lifestyles to avoid if we want to be like Jesus. Check those lists, then check your heart. Can you honestly engage in those activities and still claim a life that looks like Jesus? Can you engage in those things and still claim a relationship with God?

Not embracing who He embraces.

Jesus loves everyone. Jesus died for everyone. For any Christian to act in a prejudiced way is completely anti-Christ. Jesus’ love extended to every single person He came in contact with. Those who were lost were no exception. Actually, they were. His love and compassion seemed to extend to them more. So He went to their home. He ate with them. He healed them. He taught them. He didn’t condone their activities, but He did show His love to them so that they might be converted to Him.

Since Jesus isn’t living on earth (because He was crucified in our place), we are now His life. We are behaving in such a way that He would be pleased. We are being compassionate. We are loving. We are seeking. We are teaching.

But we aren’t just seeking and teaching those we feel deserve it or those who are mostly good already. We aren’t just seeking those who are close to salvation. We aren’t just embracing those who aren’t struggling with really big, heavy, ugly things. We are embracing everyone. Loving everyone. Including everyone so that they see Jesus in us. We aren’t condoning their lifestyle. We aren’t sugar-coating it, either. However, we are still treating them with respect and love, all the while teaching them a better way. A better way they’ll never know if they can’t see the love exuding from our hearts.

You probably fall into one of these two groups. You either struggle with a sin that is hard to let go – a sin that some in our world would claim doesn’t separate you from God – or you struggle to love those who are involved in those sins. In both cases, we’re misrepresenting Jesus.

To imitate Christ means to love what God loves and hate what God hates. God doesn’t hate anyone, and therefore to imitate Christ means that we can’t either. We can’t show partiality. We can’t be racist or sexist or any other kind of ist. But we also can’t be tolerant of sin, because we call sin what God calls sin – the thing that sent Jesus to the cross (1 John 1:9). We won’t have it in our lives and we won’t celebrate it in the lives of others. We will instead whole-heartedly seek to walk like Jesus. Loving the people of the world, but not the world. Changing our culture instead of bending to it. Challenging those around us to follow Him completely, but mostly, challenging ourselves to do things His way – and only His way – every single day.