Emulate Our Savior

July 24

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world,” I John 2:15, 16.

It is difficult to turn ones back upon the allure of the world. To the natural man, the world is all we know. From an early age we evidence a sense of ownership of what is ours as well as of desire for more things to possess.

What child in a toy store or in a candy shop does not manifest his innate proclivity to want the things he sees! The lust of the flesh, of the eyes, and the pride of life are quite discernible in our species from the earliest stages of life.

So how can God expect that we will forsake the love of the world? How can He expect that we will not desire the things we can see and handle and possess? Of course, He knows we cannot. We cannot, that is, in our own strength or of our own will. If we are to abandon the world’s pursuits and the accolades the achievement of them brings to us, we must first embrace Christ.

When we have received Jesus as our Savior and Lord, when we have opened our inner-most being to the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, we will find a transformation has occurred within us. We will find that just as Jesus had “nowhere to lay His head,” Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58, neither will we care if, “The foxes have dens and the birds have nests,” but we have no place to claim as our own.

Not only was He without a home, but His possessions were meager. We know that when He was crucified the Roman soldiers “cast lots for His garments,” as prophesied in Psalm 22:18 and as the prophecy was fulfilled in Mark 15:24. The only ‘valuable’ thing He owned was His seamless robe (see John 19:23).

Does He expect believers to take a vow of poverty and live in a monastery? He may call some to that degree of abandonment of the world, but for most believers He requires only that we allow Him to sit on the throne of our hearts—in spite of what we may possess.

If we are wealthy, He does not want our wealth to own us. If we are of humble means, He does not want our lack of earthly treasure to own us. He wants us to be as Paul was in Philippians 4:12, “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound:, and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”

Whatever our temporal circumstances might be, the Lord wants our focus to be upon the eternal, for He has said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be,” Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34. The God who loves us and gave up all things to save us wants us to follow the example He set in Philippians 2:6-11 which says:

“Christ, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

“Therefore God has exalted Him to the highest place and given Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Are we willing to emulate our Savior who gave up Heaven’s glory and the worship of angels to be a mortal man who subjected Himself to ridicule in life and to death, hell, and the grave in our behalf? Are we willing to give up earth’s fleeting badge of honor to receive Heaven’s “crown of life that the Lord has promised to them that love Him,” James 1:12!