Below is a blog I wrote for our Church blog.
Do you agree with these myths?
Would you add any to them?
For most of us, we search for things that are bigger than us. We search for those things that bring meaning to our life and rejuvenate our souls. For those of us who call ourselves Christ-Follwers that bigger thing is to become like Jesus. We find ourselves trying hard to be like Jesus only to have our failures speak louder than our successes. We find it hard to be like Jesus. Why is that?
The reason it is so hard for a lot of us is because we have bought into some myths about the spiritual life and what it means to be like Jesus.
The first myth is that we have our whole lives together the minute we come in contact with Jesus. All our problems, addiction, struggles go away the minute we encounter the living God. The truth is when we come to Jesus we enter into a new relationship. And just like any relationship it takes time and effort. We have to spend time with each other, getting to know each other; our likes and dislikes so to speak. Then it is more like we go to war together to overcome our obstacles. Very rarely to they just disappear all at once.
The second myth is that the longer we have been a spiritual person, or a christian, the more spiritual we will be. The truth is time has very little to do with your spirituality. It is more about what you do with your time. So we find if we want to grow, deepen our relationship with God and become more like Jesus we have to be intentional with our time and energy. And were as time is a factor in our growth, our spirituality is not necessarily a by-product of that time. It is how we spend our time that matters. We want to be a people that spends time with the living God and letting Him transform every part of our lives.
The final myth is that before Jesus can “fix” us, we first have to “fix” ourselves. The truth is we don’t have the ability to do that. Jesus came, healed, built relationships, taught, bled and died so that we wouldn’t have to try and fix ourselves; again, something we can’t do on our own. God longs to encounter us, engage with us and fill our being with His spirit. Then and only then can we be made complete and free.
Understanding and debunking these myths is important if we truly want to live a life that looks like Jesus. There is freedom found when we realize we don’t have to try and do this all on our own. We have someone on our side ready to work with us.
So stop thinking it will happen all at once and enjoy the journey. Stop worrying about how long it will take and start being intentional with your time. Stop trying to fix yourself and accept God’s free service to fix you.
Then you will begin to walk, talk, act and look like the very man you are trying to be like, Jesus.
Justin Cherry 