Becoming More Like Jesus

Looksmaxxing

Imagine a culture where it has become customary for young men to bash themselves in a face with a hammer. Fortunately, or perhaps I should say unfortunately, you don’t need to imagine it because this is the culture we are living in. In a day when image is everything, and everyone wants to be an influencer, you find that in order to compete with all the slop, in order to stand out, in order to appease the algorithm you must mog your peers.

Young men really are breaking their cheekbones with hammers in order to create micro-fractures in their cheekbones, and thus create a more masculine jawbone. I mean, you could have simply joined a rugby club and gotten the same effect, but who am I to tell you what to do. Other men, those who are vertically challenged, are flying to far off destinations to permanently cripple themselves through leg lengthening surgeries. Whether it be plastic surgery, IG filters, or looksmaxxing the goal is to mog. The goal is to be the admiration of all. But the irony is that such lust for glory and admiration is quite circular. It ends up devouring itself. We’ve seen how that desire, left unchecked, leads to the horrors of botox faces that can’t smile, procedures that make you infertile, and leave you a byword to all passersby. You were not made to strive after being the übermensch. 

Looksmaxxing is like sprinting through one of those mazes full of mirrors. You are going to hurt yourself because your heart and your desires all aimed at imperfect images. You have not set your sights lofty enough. You were made to be glorious, but you will not find it in the mirror.

What You Were Made for

You were made to reflect the glory of God. We were made in the image of God. Sin results in that image being destroyed. 

Hebrews teaches us that Jesus is exact image of God. It is only by union with Christ that we are remade. Faith in Christ justifies us in God’s sight. God looks at you and sees Christ. That is what we refer to as our justification. But what about the parts of us that seem to take their time becoming more like Jesus. That is what we call our sanctification. You were made to become more and more like Jesus. The question I’m sure you’re asking is, “How?”

Dufflepuds

There’s a great chapter in Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where we are introduced to creatures known as Dufflepuds. They are a type of dwarf that are certainly not intellectual giants. Aslan has assigned a magician who was once a star (long story) to govern them until they learn wisdom. This magician must rule them, and Aslan wants them to be able to come at least to be able to govern themselves. But because of their folly, the magician has transformed them into monopods so that they have a hard time wandering off into the dangers their foolish simplicity would bring upon them. Aslan comes to check in on how things are going:

“Welcome, Sir, to the least of your houses.”
“Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given you here?”
“No,” said the Magician, “they are very stupid but there is no real harm in them. I begin to grow rather fond of the creatures. Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough magic.”
“All in good time, Coriakin,” said Aslan.

Golden Calves

Many Christians are all too often ruled like that. In one sense, the OT is largely a story not too dissimilar to that episode in Narnia. Ok Hebrews, you are supposed to worship God and be like he is, ok? They all say, “Yeah cool.” Right…so here’s 10 commandments…wait…why are you worshipping a golden calf?

But how the Hebrew text in Ex. 32 describes these idolators is, to our hindsight, really comical language. The people stoop down to eat and drink. They spring up to frolic. God calls them stiff-necked, we might say bullheaded. The language paints them as straying, running wild, quickly spooked, needing to be corralled. As one commentator, who first drew my attention to this, said, “[they are portrayed] as wild calves […] because they transformed into the very object of their worship.”

Here in vivid narrative is the truth of the proverbial saying: you become like what you worship. Worship isn’t an optional add on to the life of humans. It’s why we were made. It’s hardwired into our system. God made you to worship Him, and by worshipping Him you most truly bear His image. To be human is to imitate and image forth God our Creator.

If you determine to worship anything else, you are also bound to the imitation of that thing. If you serve a golden calf, you become like a wild ox. This is why the self-absorption of our age is so very destructive. If you become like what you worship, what happens when you worship a powerless and depraved creature in rebellion to his Creator? You get a human deteriorating into themselves. It’s moral radioactive decay. The only remedy for such a moral implosion is to repent and worship God alone according to His Word. Thus, I emphasize again, the only solution to be clothed in Jesus and then by His Spirit become more like Jesus.

The Delight of Duty

Consider this insight from a Scottish minister of the late 17th century: The severities of a holy life, and that constant watch which we are obliged to keep over our hearts and ways, are very troublesome to those who are only ruled and acted by an external law, and have no law in their minds inclining them to the performance of their duty: but where divine love possesseth the soul, it stands as sentinel to keep out every thing that may offend the beloved, and doth disdainfully repulse those temptations which assault it: it complieth cheerfully, not only with explicit commands, but with the most secret notices of the beloved’s pleasure, and is ingenious in discovering what will be most grateful and acceptable unto him: it makes mortification and self-denial change their harsh and dreadful names, and become easy, sweet, and delightful things.

This is simply an elaboration upon Jesus’ own very simple teaching: “If ye love me, keep my commandments (Jhn 14:15).” The secret to becoming more like Jesus is, quite simply, to love Jesus. To love Him more than houses, money, land, fame, or the praise of men. To love Him more than your own life. To live for Him and to die for Him simply because He is worthy to receive your all.