Becoming Like Christ

How do we attain Christ-likeness?

Do we attain it through any works of our own? Through cutting sins out of our lives and then presenting ourselves to God for service? Like if we are struggling with such sins as sex, drugs, alcohol, then we need to quit these things before we come to Christ right? Because he is obviously not going to work in our lives when they are in that state right? WRONG, this is the time in which Jesus is going to be able to work in us the most.

John 9:39-41 says
"39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?"41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

Now what is Jesus talking about here? What is the point he is making? What does he mean that he is going to make the blind see and those who see blind?
In order to answer these questions we must first identify who those who are blind to begin with. Now those who are blind and then are given sight are those who understand their weakness, those who see that they are weak and terrible and unworthy.
Then who are those who see and then are made blind. The opposite of those who were blind to begin with. These are those who think they have got it all under control. Like the Pharisee’s, they have their lives in order. They think that they can see. The truth is we are all blind and it is only when we realize our blindness that we can see, as Jesus says "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains." Now this isn’t just when we first come to Christ, this is a continual thing. We, though we try, will continue to sin no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot be good enough by human effort. So if we ever think we are doing good then we get thrust into the category of the one who claims that he sees and as a result out sin remains. That is how the Christian walk goes we do bad and realize it and have sight then we overcome it and think we see, then we mess up again and realize how blind we are. It’s a continual process, because we humans are dumb, think about it we are constantly compared to sheep, and sheep are renown for their stupidity (I’ve seen that first hand) and for their stubbornness.

Numbers 21:4-9 "4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea,*to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The Lord said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived."

Now here is an example in the Old Testament of exactly what we are dealing with. The Israelites as usual have complained to God and blamed him for their problems, essentially sinned against God, and God punished them with venomous snakes. Notice though how they are healed from their problems. When they are bitten what do they do? Do they go get some medicine and treat it? No they look to the Bronze Snake and they are healed, that’s all they need do and its all they can do, they can’t go back in time and keep themselves from committing the sin and they can’t heal themselves, they must look at the bronze snake. There is something else about the snake something that really brings this whole picture alive and helps us relate it to our own predicament, because when I sin I am not fortunate enough to have Moses around holding up a bronze snake in order to be forgiven and healed. The bronze snake is really just a representation of Jesus Christ and the Cross. Ahhh now I can apply it to my life, it does relate. So what do we need to do when we sin? We look to the Cross to Jesus and ask his forgiveness, and in so doing we will be clean from all our sins. And if we look away for a moment and are bitten again by the venomous snakes, called sin, we only need look back at Christ and we are healed. Now don’t get me wrong I am not saying this gives us the license to sin. What I am saying is that we are going to sin so we can’t let it get us down and that we should feel blessed by God when we become aware of our sin because it is only at this point that Christ can heal us from our blindness when we are aware that we have it.