CHRISTLIKENESS

 

 


 

The communion of the gospel is by seeing as well as by hearing.  This double strand runs all through the Bible: image and word, vision and voice, opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf.  Just as Jesus is the Word of God and the Image of God.  The Word become visible, the Image audible...We are familiar enough with the verbal element of evangelism.  Where is the visual?

 

Douglas Webster

 


 

Perhaps the most wonderful thing of all is this:  God lifts us not only from what we are by nature to what Adam was in the Garden of Eden, but to what Adam was to become in the presence of God, and would have been had he persevered in obedience.  The gospel does not make us like Adam in his innocence - it makes us like Christ, in all the perfection of His reflection of God.

 

Sinclair Ferguson

The Christian Life, p. 16, 1997, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.

 


 

How can all things be worked together by God for good?  The answer is at hand.  It is because God's ultimate purpose is to make us like Christ.  His goal is the complete restoration of the image of God in His child!  So great a work demands all the resources which God finds throughout the universe, and He ransacks the possibilities of joys and sorrows in order to reproduce in us the character of Jesus.

 

Sinclair Ferguson

The Christian Life, p. 21, 1997, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.

 


 

There is nothing more important to learn about Christian growth than this:  Growing in grace means becoming like Christ.

 

Sinclair B. Ferguson

Grow in Grace, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 1989, p. 4.

 


 

We must never forget – if we are to grow in grace, and therefore grow like Christ – that the One we trust, love, and serve is a crucified Savior.  To follow Him means taking up the cross, as well as denying ourselves.  It means a crucified life.

 

Sinclair B. Ferguson

Grow in Grace, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 1989, p. 62.

 


 

If traces of Christ’s love-artistry be upon me, may He work on with His divine brush until the complete image be obtained and I be made a perfect copy of Him, my Master.

 

Unknown Puritan

 


 

The difficulty of the commands is merely a reflection of the greatness of the Gospel.  Jesus' expectation is built on his anticipation of what God will do in the lives of His people!  Jesus demands the humanly impossible precisely because His provisions are supernatural.  The magnitude of Jesus' commands must mean, therefore, that they are tied to the grandest promise of all, namely, the promise that God himself will work in every circumstance to conform us to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28-29).

 

Scott Hafemann

The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 203.

 


 

It is not so much great talents that the Lord blesses as great likeness to Jesus Christ.

 

Robert McCheyne

 


 

They are the God-given means by which busy believers become like Christ.  God offers His life-changing grace…to every believer- through the Spiritual Disciplines.

 

Donald Whitney

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 1991, p. 236. Used by permission of NavPresswww.navpress.com. All rights reserved.  For more information please see the website www.BibicalSpirituality.org.

 


 

Wherever the Holy Spirit dwells, His presence creates a hunger for holiness.  His office is to magnify Christ, and it is He who gives the believer a desire to be like Christ.  The natural man has no such passion.   But in the Christian, the Spirit of God begins to carry out the will of God to make the child of God like the Son of God (Romans 8:29).  And He who began this good work in the life of the believer “will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

 

Donald Whitney

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 1991, p. 237. Used by permission of NavPresswww.navpress.com. All rights reserved.  For more information please see the website www.BibicalSpirituality.org.

 


 

All our spiritual disciplines should be practiced in pursuit of Christlikeness.  We pursue outward conformity to Christlikeness as we practice the same disciplines He practiced.  More importantly, we pursue intimacy with Jesus and the inner transformation to Christlikeness when we look to Him through the spiritual disciplines.

 

Don Whitney

Remember, Its All About Jesus, www.BiblicalSpirituality.org. Used by Permission.

 


 

To become like Christ is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly and all lower achievement vain.

 

John Drummond 

 


 

God’s ultimate goal for us, however, is that we be truly conformed to the likeness of His Son in our person as well as in our standing… Jesus did not die just to save us from the penalty of sin, nor even just to make us holy in our standing before God.  He died to purify for Himself a people eager to obey Him, a people eager to be transformed into His likeness… This process of gradually conforming us to the likeness of Christ begins at the very moment of our salvation when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us and to actually give us a new life in Christ.  We call this gradual process progressive sanctification, or growing in holiness, because it truly is a growth process.

 

Jerry Bridges

Transforming Grace, NavPress, 1991, p. 105. Used by permission of NavPresswww.navpress.com. All rights reserved. 

 


 

God never allows pain without a purpose in the lives of His children.  He never allows Satan, nor circumstances, nor any ill-intending person to afflict us unless He uses that affliction for our good.  God never wastes pain.  He always causes it to work together for our ultimate good, the good of conforming us more to the likeness of His Son (see Romans 8:28-29).

 

Jerry Bridges

Transforming Grace, NavPress, 1991, p. 139. Used by permission of NavPresswww.navpress.com. All rights reserved. 

 


 

The good that God works for in our lives is conformity to the likeness of His Son. It is not necessarily comfort or happiness but conformity to Christ in ever-increasing measure in this life and in its fullness in eternity.

 

Jerry Bridges

Trusting God, 1988, p. 120.  Used by permission of NavPresswww.navpress.com. All rights reserved. 

 


 

We mistakenly look for tokens of God’s love in happiness. We should instead look for them in His faithful and persistent work to conform us to Christ.

 

Jerry Bridges

Trusting God, 1988, p. 150.  Used by permission of NavPresswww.navpress.com. All rights reserved. 

 


 

There are many who preach Christ, but not so many who live Christ. My great aim will be to live Christ

 

Robert Chapman 

 


 

It is not great gifts that God blesses so much as it is great likeness to Christ.

 

Robert McCheyne

 


 

When (pastors) measure whether or not we are successful, it must be by this criterion, namely, are we seeing the saints growing to completeness in Jesus Christ?

 

R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 29.

 


 

We are to reflect Christ in all that we say and do.  And the Christ of Scripture is the humble, suffering servant who, in spite of great opposition, false accusations, and public ridicule, remained faithful to the heavenly calling.

 

David W. Hegg

Appointed to Preach, Christian Focus Publications, 1999, p. 70.

 


 

It is inconceivable that a person could fall in love with the Redeemer in the biblical sense and not long to be conformed to the object of that affection.

 

John Hannah

To God be the Glory, Crossway, 2000, p. 38.

 


 

Press right home to your conscience the question, “What do I have of the mind of Christ?”  Does my heart answer, does my disposition correspond, to the holy, meek, humble, forgiving, benevolent, patient, self-denying mind of Christ?  Do men who know the beauty and glory of the Original, as it is delineated on the page of the gospel, when they see me, say, “There is the image of Christ!”  Or do they look skeptically on, and after standing in silence for some time, profess they can see little or no resemblance?  Oh, be satisfied with nothing short of a copy of Christ’s heart into yours!

 

John Angell James

 


 

When the wife of missionary Adoniram Judson told him that a newspaper article likened him to some of the apostles, Judson replied, “I do not want to be like a Paul or any mere man. I want to be like Christ. I want to follow Him only, copy His teachings, drink in His Spirit, and place my feet in His footprints. Oh, to be more like Christ!”

 

Author Unknown