Being a Christian is not about behavior modification. It is about allowing the life of Christ within you to manifest without. The apostle Paul earnestly desired and prayed that Christ be formed in us (Gal 4: 19). If Christ is formed in us then we take His shape because we are molded according to His pattern.
God gave us a new nature that supports our new status when we became born again. He said we are now a new creature. He gave us a new beginning in Him and He invited us on a journey with Him. We must learn to follow Him and through our obedience keep pace with Him.
God desires that we live for Him every day. His purpose is to live in us and through us. He has made us His temple and the body of Christ and by His Spirit, He feels at home in us (1Cor 3: 16). To the best of my knowledge, the body exists to carry out the instructions of the head. Likewise, the reason we exist is to carry out whatever God wants. He knows that we can do it and He expects us to do it.
To behave Christ, here are a few things to consider…
Believe: In God’s kingdom, you cannot behave what you don’t believe. Everything stems from believing that whatever He has said is the truth. You must believe that you can do what He said you can do. He said all things are possible to those who believe (Mk 9: 23). So, it is possible to behave Christ. God will not demand from you what He does not think is possible. For example, He will not demand that you fly if He has not given you the ability to fly in the first place. He will not expect what He has not supplied. We must understand this principle and trust Him to work through us what He has already planned out.
“God gave us a new nature that supports our new status when we became born again.”
One of our challenges boils down to the fact that we don’t believe and if we don’t believe, we will not see the manifestation of what He wants to do. Let God be God. It is as you believe that you cooperate with Him.
Learn Christ: If you want to behave Christ, you must learn Christ. You must understudy how He responded to different issues when He was here. Jesus had a specific way He lived here. For example, He prioritized His relationship with His Father. He did not joke about spending time with God in the place of prayer. He often separated Himself from everyone even His disciples to spend time with God. The more time He spent with His father, the more impactful He was.
” In God’s kingdom, you cannot behave what you don’t believe.“
He protected His time. He did not spend time with everyone. With some, He spent less time and with others, He spent more.
He also protected His energy. He did not do everything. He only did what was within God’s will for Him. Your relevance is in doing what God has called you to do, how He wants, when He wants, and where He wants. Remember this, you only have enough time to do God’s will and if you waste that time not minding your business and focus on your destiny, you will live in and leave here with regrets. Please note that life is time-sensitive and there is a time for every purpose.
Jesus also was intentional with the way He lived. He did not live to please everybody. He lived for the only person that mattered to Him—God. He did not dwell on other people’s opinions of Him. He was conscious of His Father’s validation. Some of us are seeking other’s approval and validation at the expense of our calling and destiny. We want everyone to like us so we end up compromising ourselves in the process.
“We must learn to follow Him and through our obedience keep pace with Him.“
If you want to know someone, you must spend time with them. Likewise, if you want to know God and behave Christ, you must spend time with Him. One of the ways to do that is through reading and studying His word. God’s word is His thoughts in print so that we can see things from His perspective.
To the extent we pay attention to His word to that extent we are changed by that word. To the extent we know His word, to that extent we will live free and not be subjected to the tradition of people around us.
Be Train in Righteousness: Being righteous is being in alignment with God. God has made you righteous and it behooves you to continue in that state in Christ. There is a particular way a righteous person must lead their lives. The Bible says the word of God will train us in righteousness (2Tim 3: 15-17). It will teach us the right way to think, the right believing, the right way to talk, the right way to interact with others, the right way to see ourselves, the right way to see things around us, the right path to take, and the right way to relate to things. Unfortunately, some of us have unholy alliances with things around us and that is why we are entangled by them. That is why we are addicted to things needlessly. The basis for our spiritual training is God’s word. Jesus taught us that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth (Mt 4: 4).
We must train ourselves by the Holy Ghost to hear God’s word and use it as a yardstick to judge every situation we face. Ps 119: 9 said “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.”
God is at work in you: God did not save you and leave you to fend for yourself. He saved you and kept working with you until you are conformed to the image of Christ (Phil 2: 13, Rom 8: 29). This is the essence of behaving Christ. God works in you so that we can work out what He is working in you. What a humbling experience!
What God wants to achieve at the end is that there will be no difference between us and Christ in what we do and how we affect our world. It will be as though Christ were the one doing what we are doing because in the actual sense, He is. Our goal is to cooperate with God so that He can fulfill His purpose in us.
“The more time He spent with His father, the more impactful He was.“
God is at work in you today and when He is done we will be what He has in mind- Christ. I think one of the challenges that God faces is to get us to that place where we trust Him to help us.
We must learn to trust the process because God knows what He is doing. One of the signs that we trust the process is to submit ourselves to Him and yield our bodies as instruments of righteousness because He has made us holy and blameless before Him (Rom 6: 13). He has separated us to Himself to reveal His glory in us.
Know that you are dead: To behave Christ, it means that you must reflect Him and to reflect Him, you must die to self. The apostle Paul had a way of looking at this in his letter to the Galatian saints:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Gal 2:20, NKJV).
You must continue to live as a dead person. The problem is that many of us still want to have our cake and eat it at the same time. We still want to keep to our old ways and reflect Christ at the same time. The two do not go together. It is either we die to self and live for Him or we die to Him and live for ourselves. The injunction of the Scripture is that those who are dead to sin should live for Him who died for them (2Cor 5:15). In fact, God expects you to live for Him.
“It (God’s word) will teach us the right way to think, the right believing, the right way to talk, the right way to interact with others, the right way to see ourselves, the right way to see things around us, the right path to take, and the right way to relate to things.“
Abide in Him: Jesus categorically declared in Jn 15 that if we don’t abide in Him we cannot bear fruit. We can only reflect the seed that has been sown into us. Just like you cannot get an apple fruit from tomato plants, so also you cannot get Christ from living for yourself and the philosophy of the world. The word of God will always produce after His kind. Failure to abide in Him will make you abide alone.
What is happening in our world today is that many Christians are abiding in the world and not the word. They are pitching their tents with the devil. They are courting the world because they have forgotten that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4: 4).
To abide means to stay somewhere permanently. Some of us still have one foot in the world and another in the word. We are neither here nor there. The problem with this mindset is that we will lose on both ends. In the kingdom of God, you cannot be hot and cold at the same time. God wants you to pick where you want to be because being lukewarm makes Him sick. He said He will spew you out of His mouth (Rev 3: 14-16).
If you don’t abide in Him, you will lose your saltiness, your brilliance, and your relevance.
Be careful how you live: To behave Christ, you must pay attention to how you live. You must be intentional about your life. God expects you to live as wise and not fools (Eph 5: 15-17). He wants you to be conscious of the fact that Christ lives in you, otherwise, you will make a fool of yourself. How are you living your life? Are you intentional about the decision you are making? Are you honest with yourself? Are you struggling to live for Him?
God is calling you to a different way of living. He is calling you to come live for Him and learn the unforced rhythm of grace. He is saying that He will lighten your loads and relieve you of your burden. What a joy to see ourselves as the body of Christ. What a wisdom to see ourselves as the extension of God’s kingdom! What a way to enter God’s reality!
“God works in us so that we can work out what He is working in us.“
Be strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: To behave Christ, you must allow His grace to carry you. Every child of God is a product of God’s grace. For example, we are saved by grace, we grow in grace, we stand by grace, we are strengthened by grace, and we live by the grace of God. The apostles of the old desired that the grace of God be multiplied to us. Grace makes a difficult journey not necessarily easy but doable.
Grace is God’s enabling power to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Grace is what keeps you going as you run the race that God has set before you. Grace is the agency of God’s support to live like Him and for Him.
“We cannot run out of grace because there is a steady and ever-increasing supply of it.“
Jesus knows what it takes to live by grace and He has supplied all the grace we need to behave Him. He once told the apostle Paul His grace was sufficient for him (2Cor 12: 9). In other words, He is assuring Paul that he needs to keep going because He has enough juice as it were to last him. That means as we make up our minds to behave Christ, we cannot run out of grace because there is a steady and ever-increasing supply of it. His grace will cause us to stand and withstand and outlast any opposition. He said where sin abounds there is much more grace (Rom 5: 20).
It is my prayer that God’s grace be multiplied to you and that grace will be with your spirit. I also pray that you will know God more and more in Jesus’ name. Amen!
