Living a Christ-like Life

(Titus 3:8 – Living a Christ-like Life)

One of the things all Christians must learn and understand is about living a Christ-like life. When a person comes to Christ it is often because they have hit rock bottom emotionally or spiritually. Christ came to help those who are suffering.

When we are living a Christ-like life, we are aiming to please God. We learn to live a life that is peaceful, honest, and good in many ways. And it also means that those in authority have no reason to oppress or cause us to suffer, because we do what is right.

The process of living a Christ-like life is exactly that. It is a process. There are a few key steps and points to understand, which we will discuss in this post.

Living a Christ-like Life through Repentance

The first step every Christian must take when they come to Christ is to repent. Repentance was the first message preached by John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the Apostles as they began their respective ministries.

Repentance is the first key to living a Christ-like life because repentance is about change. The Greek word translated as “repentance” means literally to “change your mind.” It is a call to change the way you think and to alter the way you perceive the world.

Living a Christ-like life is to change how you think and behave to be like Christ. Instead of doing the things that led you to hit rock bottom, you desire a better life. That requires a change of heart, a change of thinking, and a change in behaviour.

Repentance is a recognition that the way you have been living is wrong. It is a desire to live differently. The old life will not lead to God but leads only to death. But a repentant life leads to peace and life, including eternal life when Christ returns.

So, repentance is the first step to change in living a Christ-like life.

Living a Christ-like Life with the Holy Spirit

The life of mankind without Christ is a life of sin. Sadly, every person born on earth is born with sin and they sin during their lives, which leads to death. Christ is the only person ever born on earth who did not sin, and thus became the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

In His sacrifice, Christ paved the way for us to be able to live as He did. By ourselves, living a Christ-like life is difficult or nigh on impossible. But Christ has given us a way forward.

It was after He died that we gained the ability to receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus told us that He would send the Holy Spirit to be with and in us after He died.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7)

The work of the Holy Spirit is to teach, guide, protect, counsel, comfort, and more. But the greatest work the Holy Spirit does within us is the work of transformation.

To living a Christ-like life means to literally live as Christ lived. We need to be like Christ in our thoughts, actions, and behaviours. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

It is the Holy Spirit who is transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ. But we also have a role to play, as the scripture I am looking at today testifies.

8 The saying is sure. I desire you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to apply themselves to good deeds; these are excellent and profitable to men. (Titus 3:8)

As the scripture says, we must apply ourselves to doing what is good. If we are living a Christ-like life, we should be doing what is good in the eyes of God.

The Holy Spirit is our primary guide in all of this, but God has also provided other gifts to enable us to be living a Christ-like life.

Maturing in Christ

We have been called to repent and be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. That requires us to become mature in the ways of the Lord. To do that we must learn and understand His ways and then apply them in our lives.

God has given gifts to the church to enable this to take place.

11 And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

These gifts are given to the Church for the express reason of bring the church to maturity. Living a Christ-like life means to be mature in Jesus Christ. These gifts are designed to teach and stabilise the body of Christ so that we grow up and are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

And if we continue to read that section of scripture we are warned of the necessity to change.

17 Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; 18 they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; 19 they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. 20 You did not so learn Christ! (Ephesians 4:17-20)

It’s all about Change

It all comes down to this, which is what I said at the beginning. Living a Christ-like life is about change.

It starts with repentance and the desire to change. The work continues as we learn the teachings of Jesus Christ through studying the word and being taught by ministers appointed by God. And the change is brought to completion by the transformational work of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

Seek these things if you have not already. The process of transformation will lead you to the place where you are living a Christ-like life. And in the end, that will lead to a better life now, and eternal life in the future.

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