What would you expect?

“He looks just like you!”

“She has your eyes!”

“He’s got your nose!”

Have you ever made such comments to a friend upon seeing their newborn baby? You note the same features in the baby’s face that you see in their father or mother — they look alike!

As citizens, we’ve seen this on the political stage from famed families such as the Kennedy’s and the Bush family. Whether it was John and Robert, or George and Jeb, we see things that make it obvious they’re family. Not just in their appearances, but also in their thinking and behaviors.

So, when you think about someone being God’s child, a member of His family who is also appointed to be an ambassador through whom God makes His appeal to the lost world (2 Cor. 5:18-20), what do you think that child of God would look like?

Holy?

Full of love since God is love?

Compassionate and just?

Full of truth since Christ (who is God) IS truth? (John 14:6.)

What is it, when you look at that person, that makes it obvious they’re part of God’s family, one of His children?

So then, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, an adopted child of God, is that how YOU look?

God’s greatest desire for you and me is that we become like Him …

“Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy.” – Ephesians 4:24.

Pastor Bill Morgan helps us better understand the gist of this scripture with this story …

On a wall near the main entrance to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, is a portrait with the following inscription: “James Butler Bonham — no picture of him exists. This portrait is of his nephew, Major James Bonham, deceased, who greatly resembled his uncle. It is placed here by the family that people may know the appearance of the man who died for freedom.” No literal portrait of Jesus exists either. But the likeness of the Son who makes us free can be seen in the lives of His true followers.

In the same way, the likeness of our Creator and Savior should be seen when people look at those of us who profess to be children of God, followers of Christ.

Just as it is God’s greatest desire that we become like Him, that should be our greatest desire as well.

A story is told that when the wife of missionary Adoniram Judson told him 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!”

Oh, to be more like Christ, indeed!

To become more like Christ is the whole purpose of our ongoing spiritual formation …

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ … Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church,” Ephesians 4:11-13, 15.

This equipping, this “build up the church” is specifically for our maturing as children of God who become more and more like Christ. It’s like a story recorded in Discipleship Journal by Carole Mayhall who tells of a woman who went to a diet center to lose weight. The director took her to a full-length mirror. On it he outlined a figure and told her, “This is what I want you to be like at the end of the program.” Days of intense dieting and exercise followed, and every week the woman would stand in front of the mirror, discouraged because her bulging outline didn’t fit the director’s ideal. But she kept at it, and finally one day she conformed to the longed-for image.

Some day, you and I will conform to the long-for image of Christ!

Many claim that the longer a couple is married, the more they look like each other. Some disagree with this claim, others provide pictures of couples who have striking similarities. Certainly over the years they learn to walk in unison much more, and they share much more the same thinking and behaviors. The same is true with the bride of Christ!

So when people want to see what God looks like, can they find His resemblance in you? Would someone say you’ve got His heart? That you think just like Him? That you have His compassion, or His righteousness, or justice? The more you put to death the self, daily take up your cross and follow Him, the more people will see that you’re not like mere men, you’re a child of God!

Scotty