Becoming Like Christ
2 Timothy 2:15 NIV says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."
As Christians, we are invited every day to become more like Christ. We want to have the same mind and attitude that He had, to become more like Him every day. In a world that’s constantly living in opposition to God’s design, we want to do our best to present ourselves to God as approved— workers who have no need to be ashamed.
Maybe you haven’t always lived life with Christ. Maybe there are things in your past you’re ashamed of. That’s okay. You're not alone.
In this letter, Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of his past, but instead to let his past be a testament to how Jesus has changed his life. When we receive Jesus, we are made new and given a fresh start. Your past is part of your story, a way that you can show others how Jesus changed your life.
The best way that we can continue to be transformed by Jesus is to continually seek His truth in Scripture. As we engage with Scripture and the Holy Spirit, our minds and hearts are changed to be more like Christ.
How can you be more like Christ today? Think of a few small steps you can take to begin to shift your thinking and actions towards the mission of God or the character of Christ. Ask God for His help as you seek to follow Him daily.
“We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, And sing unto ...
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth...