In an occasional series, Lieut-Colonel Peter Wood will be
        looking at different aspects of the Christian faith. 

To be like Jesus

I think sometimes it seems a rather futile activity to try to be "like Jesus". If He was the Son of God, from whose hands came earth-shattering, life-changing miracles, from whose lips came wisdom beyond belief, from whose heart came compassion beyond our capacity, and a sacrifice which brought about the world's redemption, we have little chance of being "like Him". In our
miserable, inadequate being, full of human frailty, damaged by original sin (as the theologians put it), to be like Jesus might seem to be a bit of a
pipe-dream.

And yet, in His overwhelming mercy and grace, God, our Father, through His Son, Jesus, has allowed us to hear the gospel, and to make the response which has brought us into a state of salvation, into a knowledge of Jesus as our personal Saviour. Through His word we are urged to let His mind be in us (Phil.2:5), to try to live in such a way that the life we live now is not our life, but the life which Christ lives within us (Galatians 2:20).

And so, although we may never achieve the ultimate goal of being perfect as He is perfect (Matthew 5:48), we can, by that same grace of God which brought our salvation, adopt His ways in our lifestyle, and in that sense be “like Jesus”.