Embrace The Vision Of Christlikeness

September 2005

The vision of every follower of Christ is that Christ is formed in him. This is what Paul prays for the Galatian believers in 4:19. Apprentices of Jesus must deliberately choose this vision. A choice has to be made. The heart must will in order for this to become a reality. Citizens of the Kingdom of God have the God-given vision and intention to become like Jesus Christ. They behave like Jesus would behave if he were them. With time and much discipline this behavior will become the “natural” way to live. Rather than respond with anger when angered they respond with the same meekness of Christ. When persecuted they respond with love not with hate.

However, choosing the vision is not enough. Every believer needs to discover the means necessary to embrace the vision of Christlikeness. Our Lord lived his life according to the pattern of life of his Jewish background. He practiced certain disciplines like fasting, praying, worshiping, solitude. Paul, the apostle, commands his disciple, Timothy, to train for the purpose of godliness in 1 Timothy 4:7-8.

A main discipline that Jesus cherished was prayer. The Jews of his day, including himself, punctuated their day with prayer. One prayer, called the Khaddish, included praying that God’s name be honored, that his will be done and that his kingdom would spread to all the nations. Faithful Jews still pray this prayer. However, Jesus adds to this prayer a few elements that concerned relationship with others. For Jesus, loving God and loving others went hand-in-hand. What Jesus adds to the Khaddish, which he repeated daily 3 times was: Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us and lead us not into temptation. This is what loving others is like for Jesus’ followers.

When the disciples struggled with prayer they came to Jesus to know how to do this prayer life, this prayer without ceasing. Jesus encourages repeating the Lord’s Prayer.

Now it would be an honorable thing if we were to copy Jesus on this practice. If he saw fit for his own communion with the father to repeat a prayer such as the “Our Father” we could do no better than to punctuate our days with the same prayer he prayed.

I have given myself lately to this repetition of the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. For me it serves several purposes.

      1. It is a reminder how God has been providing for me all day long.

      2. It helps me observe how God, because He is Abba, will continue to provide all my needs for the rest of the day and into the future.

      3. It helps me to stop a few times a day to focus my attention on the Father who loves me.

      4. With time this reality of this prayer, the will of God, his kingdom, his name, his provision, his forgiveness and help with temptation are becoming the way I am seeing my life evolve in him. In other words, these elements of the prayer are fast becoming what really matters in life. They constitute life in the Kingdom of God. Walking with the master in his Kingdom is what life is all about.

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