Preachers often urge people to follow and imitate and be like Christ. They are speaking very Biblically when they issue that call. For instance, the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 --- "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” Another passage presenting the same challenge is Ephesians 5:1 — “Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children.” Most professing Christians readily express a desire to follow and be like Christ. But are you sure you want to be like Him? Professing to be like Him and even wanting to be like Him are noble and even necessary things, but actually being like Him is sometimes very difficult to do. Years ago I ran across a little told by story by Alan Smith (Boone church of Christ, Boone, North Carolina) that humorously drives that point home. He told about a mother who was preparing pancakes for her sons Kevin, age 5, and Ryan, age 3. The boys argued over who would get the first pancake. Mother seized the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus was sitting here,” she told them, “He would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.’” Kevin turned to his younger brother saying, “Ryan, you be Jesus.” Brother Smith then added, “I think it’s safe to say we’re all a little like Kevin. We want everyone else to act like Jesus. We want everyone else to make the sacrifices and be kind and giving. We want everyone else to make the sacrifices and be kind and forgiving of us.”
I could mislead myself here and say that I always want to be like Christ. But if I’m honest, I have to confess there are more times than I’m comfortable with when I am more like Kevin. How about you? A Scripture at Galatians 4:19 presents a tremendous thought about what it means to truly be a Christian. There the apostle Paul wrote, “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.” The Greek word translated “labor” in the New King James Version is ódinó (pronounced in English o-dee'-no) and is defined by Strong’s Concordance as “to have birth pangs, to travail.” The King James Version renders the word as “for whom I travail in birth again.” We have little space to explore the context here, but the letter of GALATIANS makes clear Paul experienced pain when he first preached and established congregations in the region known in the first century as Galatia. Some of the pain was physical (see Acts 13, 14, especially 14:19 where it is recorded that Paul’s Jewish opponents stoned him in the city of Lystra, dragged him out of town, and left him for dead). After some time he’s still experiencing great emotional, mental, and spiritual anguish over the Galatians who are being led astray by false teachers trying to convince them to trust in and keep the Law of Moses for salvation instead of trusting and obeying Christ and His gospel (Galatians 1:1-9 and all of chapter 2). Now in 4:19 he uses childbirth and the agonizing pain that accompanied it in ancient days (modern medicine has relieved some, but not all, of the pain of birthing a child) as a metaphor. He confesses he is in that kind of intense anguish “again” and declares it will continue “until Christ is formed in you.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines this phrase as meaning, “literally, until a mind and life in complete harmony with the mind and life of Christ shall have been formed in you.” God’s goal for us is “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17a). His will is that we walk and act “just as He walked” (1 John 2:6). To end where we began above, we must not be like Kevin. We must be like Christ.
by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN
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