Growing in Christlikeness - Manifesting God's Character

Описание: Today, I'll be sharing about manifesting God's Character. Our title is "Growing in Christlikeness".

Let's begin by understanding who Jesus is.

Jesus Christ is the expression of God's being in bodily form Heb 1:3.
Hebrews 1:3  who being the shining splendor of His glory, and the express image of His essence, and upholding all things by the word of His power, through Himself cleansing of our sins, He sat down on the right of the Majesty on high, (MKJV)
Colossians 2:9  For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (MKJV)

Why is it necessary to be Christlike?

It was God's original plan.

In Genesis we are told that God created man in His image and likeness.
Genesis 1:26  God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Today we will concentrate on the likeness aspect.

When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we are born into a new life. Our spirit is regenerated by the
Holy Spirit. Henceforth we are supposed to manifest God's character. God is our spiritual Father. Like a new born baby,
we are supposed to grow into maturity and completely manifest God's character in our lives.

Christians were first called by that name in Antioch because people could see how they manifested Christ in their
character. Likewise, we are supposed to do the same.

So, what is God's character like? We will only look at 3 characteristics that we are supposed to emulate as His children.
The Bible tells us that God is Love.
1 John 4:8  He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.

1 John 4:16-17  We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.  (17)  In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world.

The Greek word used is agape. This denotes love
that is unconditional to start with. We will look at the qualities of this love. We can use this as a checklist each day
to find out how much we manifested these qualities in our lives.

First we should see how this love is deposited in us as believers of Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:5 says that this love is poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Lets now go to 1 Cor 13:4-8 to see the characteristics of this love. There are about 15 of them. I'll read from the NIV in this case for ease of remembering, but you can read any other version of your choice.

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. (NIV)

So here is our checklist that we should use daily or regularly:

1. Patient - Are you patient with people or very impatient?
2. Kind - Some people say everyone for himself and God for us all and they don't care about anyone else. Are you among them?
3. Never envious - Do you envy others when they get promotions, breakthroughs or something nice happens to them? Do you silently wish it was for you?
4. Never boastful - Do you boast about your achievements instead of giving the credit to God who has given you the grace to succeed?
5. Never proud - Do you belittle others and think you're better than everybody else?
6. Never dishonouring others - Do you enjoy speaking ill of others and ashaming them in public?
7. Never self-seeking - Are you always pursuing your interests at the expense of other people?
8. Not easily provoked - Are you easily agitated? Do you lose your temper quickly and even brag about it as a good thing that you don't tolerate nonsense for example?
9. Never keeps a record of wrongs - When someone offends you e.g. a spouse, do you retrieve a long list of previous wrongs and read them out to them as in a court of law? Story of a couple: someone was reminded that even they forgot to do something on their anniversary.
10. Never rejoices in evil - Do you take part in conversations where evil deeds are discussed and cherished?
11. Always rejoices in the truth - Are you always on the side of truth even when the majority are on the other side?
12. Always protects - Do you protect the interests of others especially the downtrodden or marginalised?
13. Always trusts - Do you give people the benefit of the doubt and rely on the Holy Spirit to give you discernment about the issues at hand?
14. Always hopeful - Are you optimistic or are you pessimistic?
15. Always persevering - Do you carry out your plans that you believe are in God's will even when circumstances and other people are against them?

Love will never fail.