“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
— Hebrews 13:8 (NKJV)
Taking this verse at face value should bring us to a new understanding of who we ought to be; and of how we should live before men and God. We are commanded to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19) and in order to make disciples we must first be disciples ourselves. A disciple is someone who studies their teacher in-order to become like him; it follows then that to be a disciple of Jesus we must have a desire to be like Jesus.”
To be like Him may seem a daunting task at best; impossible in every sense of the word without the aid of the Holy Spirit; and yet it is what we are called to do.
If we are to be like Jesus then we too must be the same “yesterday, today, and forever”. That doesn’t mean that we always have the same thoughts or the same wants or preferences; it does mean that we are the same in our innermost being as we are in our public actions and attitudes; that we do not change our behavior according to our audience. Jesus was no respecter of persons and if we would be His disciples then neither should we alter our actions and feelings to please others.
We will certainly have different feelings and emotions according to life’s situations, just as Jesus did; but his actions were never different from His inner self. When He was angry and drove the money changers out of the temple; He was angry on the inside too. When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, He wept on the inside too. In the Garden when Jesus prayed and wept those three times, His spirit also wept and prayed because He was always, in every way, the same person.
Most of us struggle (self included) with maintaining such focus on Jesus that we are able to always be like Him. It is such a struggle that I believe it to be a sure sign of Spiritual maturity when we are able to be the same person; to and around others; that we are on the inside. Let’s go, and be like Him!
— Bro. Bobby
