Every true Christian desires to be like Jesus, but what does it mean to be like Jesus?

I grew up thinking that if I tried to imitate the qualities I thought Jesus probably had I could be like Him. God would then be happy with me and take me to heaven when I die. But at age nineteen I had no more assurance that God was pleased with me than when I started trying to be like Jesus. The problem was what to do with all my failures—those sins I could not shake and the good things I did with wrong motives, trying to bargain with God for salvation? I needed forgiveness for my “shortcomings” (that word sounds better than the word “sins”, but actually refers to the same refusal to turn control of my life over to God).

In fact, God even made me sing what I was living. I was in a church choir preparing an Easter cantata and was chosen to sing the solo part of just the brief statement Jesus made to the Father, “Not my will, but Thine be done”. On the day of the performance, in front of a full church, as we came to the part of my solo I lustily broke out with the message, “Not Thy will, but mine be done”. As we left the church nobody said anything to me about it, but when I finally came to know Christ I remembered singing those words.

At a Bible study in the navy I heard the answer to my problem. Jesus suffered and died on the cross for MY sins and I must ask His forgiveness and cleansing and receive Him as my Savior and Lord. Jesus then comes into our heart, cleanses our past, assures us of heaven and directs our life. He had lived His life by the power of the Holy Spirit and now lives His life in us by the Holy Spirit. It is His presence in us that daily transforms us into His image. So, first of all, to be like Jesus means having His presence. If Jesus isn’t in you there is no hope of being like Him.

The first thing Jesus taught His twelve disciples was the beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12. These are the eight attitudes He had on earth and now produces in us as He lives His life through us. Paul the Apostle wrote in 2Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD”.

This is what God produces in us as we gaze on His glory in the face of His Son. When this glory fills the heart it changes the face. As Moses descended Mount Sinai after meeting with God (Ex.34:29), he was not aware that the skin of his face shone. As the martyr Stephen (Acts 6:15) spoke of Christ his face shone like that of an angel.

.As I sat in the local mall one day, watching the people go by, I noted the expression on the faces of those who passed. I saw varying degrees of anxiety, anger, hardness, loneliness, or weariness. The heart is revealed in the face. Instead of looking for beauty, I was looking for character. I wanted to see what God sees. In 1Samuel 16:7 we are told that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. However, the heart is seen in the face. Abraham Lincoln once said that every man over 20 is responsible for his face. In other words, whatever you allow in your heart will show up on your face.

Proverbs 4:24 warns us to keep our heart with all diligence because out of it are the issues of life. That is why having Jesus in your heart will transform your life to be like Him. To be like Jesus means having His presence.

To be like Jesus also means having His purpose. Being like Jesus does not refer to a physical likeness. We don’t know what Jesus looked like. Drawings we see are just a guess as to what He might have looked like. Jesus was probably not outstanding in appearance because we read in Isaiah 53:2 that the Messiah would have no beauty that we should desire Him. When the Jews tried to stone Him, He was able to disappear into the crowd, implying that he did not stand out in a crowd, but could easily hide Himself.

This world stresses physical beauty. Beauty contests stress outward beauty. A person’s job or marriage can often be influenced by the degree of physical beauty. Physical beauty can be an attraction for predators, or it can cause pride, even though we have no choice as to the degree of physical beauty we may or may not have. That is why we must praise children for having a pretty dress, or hair combed nicely, but not for being a pretty or handsome child since they did nothing to attain physical beauty nor can they change what they now have.

Physical beauty can be used wrongly for personal advantage. A beautiful young lady gets a secretary job even though she can’t type because the boss has other motives. It is possible to use personal beauty to get what you want, to get people to serve you. Sometimes people don’t like the way God made them because they feel that if they were more beautiful they would get served better.

Jesus did not need physical beauty because he did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister (Mark 10:42-45). Jesus’ purpose in life was to serve others, so for Him physical beauty was not important.

One day as we were driving through a deserted area of the state of Wyoming heading toward the west coast to visit the grandparents in California, the car began to pull toward the right. I pulled off the road into a little roadside park area, got out and discovered that I had a tire that was rapidly going flat. When I purchased the car I had noted that there was a jack in the trunk so I opened the trunk, removed the jack, placed it under the car, and returned to get the jack handle only to discover that there was no handle to be found. Nor was there anything that even resembled or could be used to take the place of a jack handle. There was no way to jack up the car without the handle. We were miles from nowhere, with no cars nor houses in sight in either direction. These were the days before cell phones, and probably out of range even if they had existed.

As calmly as possible I leaned into the car and explained our problem to my wife and two little girls and that we needed to pray and ask God to send someone to help us. As I finished my desperate prayer and opened my eyes I saw a car quietly coasting into the park area. He pulled up alongside our vehicle, lowered his window, and stated that he had seen our car pulled over and wondered if we were having any kind of trouble? I explained my problem and we discovered that his jack handle worked fine and we soon had the spare tire on my car. He was God’s answer to our prayer. It mattered nothing if he were handsome or homely, only that he had a jack handle. To us he was a beautiful person because he was God’s instrument of ministry to us.

Washing the feet of visitors was common in Bible times due to the dusty roads and use of open sandals. In Romans 10:15 we are told that the feet of those who bring good news are beautiful. The feet don’t have to be beautiful. What is important is the beauty of the message. So also if my purpose in life is to be served, then it is important that I be handsome, but if my purpose is to serve, physical beauty is not only unnecessary, but may even be a potential hindrance.

To be like Jesus means having his presence in our life – gazing into his face we are transformed into his likeness – and to be like Jesus means having his purpose for our life – not to be ministered unto, but to minister and meet the needs of others.

What the true believer wants more than anything else is to be like Jesus right now, but whatever is lacking now he knows that one day the change will be completed, for Scripture promises that one day we shall be totally like Him for we shall see Him as He is.

1 John 3:1 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.”

Listen to "Protecting Today's Happiness"