During the Christmas
season, it seems fitting that we should take a moment to remember how we are
called to conduct ourselves as followers of Christ.
In a world increasingly
divided and ruled by hatred, it is getting difficult to find examples worth
following, lives worth emulating. In fact, we must look back two millennia to
find the only illustration of untainted godliness: Jesus Christ.
Even if Jesus had
never spoken a word, his conduct, his actions alone, would have put the world
to shame. He—the Son of God, the Word incarnate—humbled Himself, coming in the
form of a servant, living and dying in service, for the benefit of not only the
men and women he encountered, but for mankind. This meek nature is a lesson
many of us today need to be taught or at least re-learn. I, for example,
definitely could use a good long seminar on self-sacrificial love, on Jesus 101.
Let’s take a moment
to consider our daily conduct. Does it reflect the love of Christ? If not, how does it reflect on Him then? When
people see us, do they sense the love Christ displayed and advised us to share?
We must remember
that we might be the only representative of Christ that some people ever meet.
Our conduct should therefore reflect this, should be performed: ‘. . . in a
manner worthy of the gospel of Christ’ (Philippians 1:27) and exercised with
holiness because He is holy ‘so be ye holy in all manner of conversation’ (1
Peter 1:15-16). This means our every word and act is to be filtered through self-control
and enhanced by love. These virtues don’t come easy; they must be developed and
exercised by us on a daily basis (2 Peter 1:5-8), and they are vital to helping us
replace inherited bigotry, bias, and baseness, this last of which we tend to
gravitate to when we fail in our Christian duty of honing Christ-like virtues.
Finally, let us
close with the simple yet profound passage found in 1 Corinthians 16:14, which
states: ‘Let everything you do be done with love.’
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