I am convinced more and more each day that the model Jesus set through the incarnation can no longer be ignored by we who claim to follow Him. If we truly believe Christ's words, "where I am, there shall my servant also be". The first question we need to ask about Jesus is: where?
Where did he come from? Where did he go? Where is he now? We need to establish all these possible places so that we can accurately follow him in them. We know from scripture that Jesus left Heaven to come down to earth. Hebrews 2 says "he partook of the same [flesh and blood]", that "he had to be made like His brethren in all things". And from 2 Corinthians 8:9, "for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that through His poverty you might become rich."
So here's Jesus, the son of God, leaving the comfort and wealth of Heaven and entering the nasty poverty of earth. But he doesn't stop there. He actually becomes poor; he partakes of the same flesh and blood as us, the same sufferings. This is the gospel message. God didn't love us from afar and save us from Heaven. He came to us, lived as one of us in order to love us where we are.
Paul put it this way to the church in Thessalonica: "We were well pleased to impart to you not only the good news of God, but also our very lives because you had become very dear to us," and to the church in Corinth he says "I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some". Paul saw that the life of Jesus was God sharing his very life with us. He saw that Jesus threw his lot in with ours, that he became like us in order to save us, and so Paul recognized the need to do the same in his ministry.
The call to follow Jesus cannot be taken lightly. Jesus did not halfway love us from afar; he didn't save us from afar; and he didn't pop in with ideas to fix things immediately. No, he came to us and made his dwelling with man. He linked our futures together.
Where does that leave us? If we believe in Jesus as Messiah, and we desire to follow him, then we have got to follow his example. The call to follow him and serve and love others is a call to imitate his love. We need to throw our lots in with those we minister to, and like Paul we need to share our very lives with them. We need to live with them like Jesus lived with us on earth. We need to become like them like Jesus partook of the same flesh and blood we have. We need to be like Paul, who became all things to all men. For the poor we need to become poor, living with them, binding our futures together. How can we "follow" Jesus and do anything less?
What does this look like in our lives? Are we really following the Jesus who gave up his wealth, comfort, and power, who “became for a little while lower than the angels”? Or are we living our own lives, satisfied to love others when it is convenient; to love others from afar. If God is love, then love looks to me like sacrificing wealth, comfort and living as one of those we are trying to love, sharing the same hardships like Jesus shared with us.
Chris Mills
