Christians face an impossible mission; one that is truly beyond our potential. The problem: human sin and its results. The mission: to undo the dire effects of sin, to bring reconciliation between us and God, and to extend that reconciliation to all creation. In the quotable phrase of N.T. Wright, it’s the mission of “putting the world back to rights.” This mission’s degree of difficulty? Utterly impossible. No amount of human cleverness, no collection of spiritual gizmos and disguises, will mend the breach between us and God, and heal all that is wrong with the world.
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians follows his prior letters and ministry there, and he continues to defend his ministry against criticism and misunderstanding. But Paul doesn’t just defend his ministry; he also wants them to mimic his pattern of life, something he “teaches in all the churches” (1 Corinthians 4:8-17). The Corinthians—and all readers—must respond to the benefits of the cross of Jesus by taking up their crosses and laying down their lives, imitating Paul as he imitated Jesus. Paul provides the longest sustained writing on giving in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 8-9, addressing motives, priorities and principles for Christian giving as he instructs the Corinthians about continuing to participate in his collection for the poor. Such opportunities to live out our mission and follow the pattern of Jesus and Paul (8:9) are abundant today. Paul insists that his weakness—and ours, if we follow him and Jesus—is not a detriment but a strength. Paul’s letter challenges our worldly models of success, influence and power. It challenges us to reject the quest for comfort and wealth which all too easily tends to shape our priorities and expectations.
How do we delight ourselves in the Lord? By doing what pleases Him and putting His law in our hearts. Then, as we are sanctified, He gives us the desires of our heart. Here’s how Matthew Henry put it: “He has not promised to gratify all the appetites of the body and the humours of the fancy, but to grant all the desires of the heart, all the cravings of the renewed sanctified soul. What is the desire of the heart of a good man? It is this, to know, and love, and live to God, to please him and to be pleased in him.” *
Imitating Christ requires us to walk as Jesus walked. Imitating Christ cannot be achieved without spiritual maturity, and spiritual maturity in turn cannot be achieved without a deep understanding and persistent application of the virtues of scripture. Virtue is truth, distilled and applied to the individual life. All we know, all we understand, all we believe about the truths of the Bible must come together into patterns of thinking which become habitual and then we must follow through with our words and our deeds as well. We have not been left alone in this objective of reaching maturity and achieving a life of virtuous thinking and acting. God has provided an extensive support system to aid us in our task which is not restricted to the help we receive from all facets of the church; we have also been given a detailed pattern to follow, namely the virtuous life of our master, Jesus Christ:
Christ Himself appointed some of us apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers in order to prepare all of His holy people for their own ministry work, that the entire body of Christ might thus be built up, until we all reach that unifying goal of believing what is right and of giving our complete allegiance to the Son of God, that each of us might be a perfect person, that is, that we might attain to that standard of maturity whose "attainment" is defined by Christ; that we may no longer be immature, swept off-course and carried headlong by every breeze of so-called teaching that emanates from the trickery of men in their readiness to do anything to cunningly work their deceit, but rather that we may, by embracing the truth in love, grow up in all respects with Christ, who is the head of the Church, as our model. In this way, the entire body of the Church, fit and joined together by Him through the sinews He powerfully supplies to each and every part, works out its own growth for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:11-16
