Day 9 - Choosing a Model

Whenever we are building anything, it is always a good thing to have close at hand a picture, a diagram or a model to follow in forming the finished product. In fact, very little is ever put together by man without having some sort of pattern actually in front of him, portrayed to him through writing and art or imagined in his mind through memory and music.

As schoolchildren we used to love constructing planes and battleships from plastic or balsa kits, the picture of the finished product being propped up in front of us on the kitchen table. The would-be jigsaw assembler does the same thing with the lid of the box. For the same reason, the sculptor has to keep in the forefront of his mind the finished model he is striving for, and as he works away at the material, the likeness of his vision becomes the sought-after result.

We have only one life here, and In order to live it the way it should be lived, we must get hold of, from somewhere, a perfect pattern on which to model ourselves.

Thank God, the perfect model can be easily found. Like leafing through patterns in a wallpaper book, we can look down to the present day at the vast array of people who have lived since Adam but we will find only one that can be properly taken as a prototype against which we can model ourselves. It is the life of Jesus.

To make sure that we live this single life opportunity of ours to its fullest extent, to work it to the highest degree of its possible quality, we must put it together in a way that fits, as closely as we can make it, the glorious pattern of the life of Christ. He says, "I am the life."

The words and works of Jesus have been put on this planet as the archetypal life for every other human life. He invites us to go after him, rather he commands us to step in his footprints, to walk through life the same way he did.

There have been many wonderful people in the world, famous leaders, artists, inventors, scientists and musicians but not one of them has offered us a true and genuine standard for living. But it is quite possible for a human being to do so, they might reveal the life of Christ to us. We might then be able to imitate, not them, but the Christ-life that is displayed through them.

Thinking over that possibility, the most extraordinary work that anyone of us could ever do would be to reveal the life of Christ to someone else by the way we carried ourselves through our own life, and help that person in themselves to be shaped more in the image of the Son of God.

There is a group of flowers growing at home, in a terracotta garden pot, in a completely shaded spot where the son's rays cannot reach it. The kitchen window is so conveniently sited that, at a certain time of the day, it reflects the sunlight and throws it onto the pot, giving it colour and beauty, and enabling the flowers to bloom and bring us great pleasure.

Unhappily, many people are living in the dense shade. They have never been affected by the light from Christ shining on them. If you can live in a way that reflects the life of Christ and turns it onto someone else and mark them, like a suntan, with a holier life, you have not lived for nothing.

To display the life of Christ in front of someone in its beauty and purity, and that reflection then changes them to love Jesus more, if only a little bit,- the value of your effort could not even be estimated. It would be measureless.

Helping someone else into a better way of living is a far greater work than attracting worldly honour and wealth. Blessed is the life that provokes some other life to be more like Christ. Oh, how I wish this thought would take hold of my heart and fill it with a much greater longing to live the life of God.

We are encouraged by the words of Jesus recorded in Scripture to follow like little children. Children dear to their father's heart bring him enormous pleasure through their obedience. God's children are dear to him, and his will is that we should follow him.

To follow Christ is a simple enough concept - it is to imitate him, to be like him. This is the true way of life.

"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;" 1 Peter 1:15.

Only those of us who are seeking to live a godly life in all we do are spending our pilgrimage days the way we were intended to.

Jesus walked the only really true way of life and we are told to tread in his footprints. If we place our life's feet each day just where he did, on looking back from the gates of heaven, we will not see a single footprint of our own. But if we miss just one of them, our footprint will show our departing from the true way of life, for the rest of eternity.

Jesus says, "I am the way." However hard we might look for an alternative, there is no other right and perfect way to follow. If we walk in the same way that Jesus walked, then we will walk in the true path of life.

This is the only narrow roadway that leads up to the pearly gates of glory and the golden streets of heaven. Looking forward in anticipation to that bright world of delight encourages us onwards and upwards. If we follow Jesus by living like he did, God's approval will rest on us, and his outstretched hand will help us along life's way and, in the end, to climb through the torn curtain into his presence for ever.

Very often we become weary, and come to believe that the trials and tribulations along the route might almost be too heavy to bear; but when we remember that this is the exact way that Jesus walked along, then the prospect of heaven opens up ahead of us. We look forward eagerly to the mansion prepared for us, and our back-pack of cares grows a little lighter.

Watch for a moment that old pilgrim with his stick, ambling down the western slope of life. The sun in his eyes is nearly set. His pilgrimage has been a long and hard one, but he has been faithfully following the path his Saviour took. For all that time his life has been hidden with Christ in God. The old man's footprints have been hidden in his Lord's. In Him he has lived and moved and had his being.

Now he is taking his last step; now he passes out of sight through the gates into that land promised to us where hardships of every kind are over and the light of Christ never sets.

His life was, as far as a human being can manage, conducted as a copy of the character of Jesus. He was holy as God is holy; he walked as Jesus walked. This is how to live.

This is the true way for every man and the only way to eternal life. Those of us who cannot, or do not, live with Christ on earth cannot expect to live with him in heaven, either. The life of Christ was the perfect life, and the perfect example to follow. Our own living is only perfect to the extent that we imitate him.