Oswald Chambers on Christ-Likeness (or, The Inadequacy of Words)

From the July 18th entry of Still Higher for His Highest:

"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice." Self-sacrifice may be simply a disease of the nerves, a morbid self-consciousness which is the obverse of intense selfishness. [...] Whenever I make self-sacrifice the aim and end of my life, I become a traitor to Jesus; instead of placing Him as my Lodestar I place Him as an example, One who helps me to sacrifice myself. [...] It is much easier to sacrifice myself, to efface myself, than to do God's will in God's way.

Oswald here reveals the inadequacy of words when we say (quite sincerely) that we are to "imitate" Christ. Though Christ-likeness is indeed or aim, we err when we call it "imitating" Christ, for that suggests mimicry, a conscious effort on our part to adhere as closely as we can to Christ character and guidelines. The danger is that we treat Christ like yet another spiritual guru whose Sermon on the Mount is the latest moral code that we are to try our best to follow. That, however, is not what "Christ-likeness" means.
The simple fact is that we are not to imitate Christ, but rather follow Him by obedience. He is our leader, not an example. To follow Him, to trust and obey Him, is our only duty; meanwhile, it is God who makes us "like Christ" (Phil. 2:13; Rom. 8:29-30) as we follow and obey Christ (John 14:15, 15:14). Christ-likeness is a work of God and not of ourselves. It is an impartation of Christ and not an imitation.
Surprisingly enough, "imitating" Christ could very well be a type of pride: "Look how like Christ I am! I follow Him so well!" "No, I follow Him better!" "No, I do!" Conversely, those who simply follow and obey Christ really have no grounds to boast, for two reasons: (1) whatever Christ-likeness they have is of God and not themselves, and (2) Christ leads each person differently, so there really is no way to compare any one to another (John 21:20-22).
This understanding of Christ-likeness as impartation rather than imitation changes the whole nature of the Christian life. I have been asked before about whether or not it is hard to "keep all of those rules" in order to be a good Christian. My response has been to point out that Christianity is not something that you do but rather something that you are made by God. The reason a true Christian "acts different" from others is not because they are really good at keeping the rules of a moral teacher, but because they, having decided to follow Christ, have been indwelt by the real and living presence of the Spirit of God, who makes them more like Christ along their way. Perhaps if we understood and expressed this necessary distinction between "keeping rules" and "being made into His image," perhaps then our lives and God's grace will become more wondrous, both to ourselves and others.

-Jon Vowell