Becoming like Jesus?
What does it mean to think like Jesus thinks?
“Jesus wants to make us like himself before he takes us to heaven. What God cares about most is that whatever you do, you do in a Christlike manner.” Pastor Rick Warren
“We fail to live like Jesus because we haven’t learned to think the way he thinks.”
“Some people say they love Jesus, but their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. He is an imaginary Jesus that they invented in their own minds” (and for their own purpose.) Abounding Joy
What does it all mean?
It’s problematic enough that Christians modernize the historical Jesus, (see previous blog) but it gets even worse when christian dogma declares that the ultimate goal of any christian is to become like Jesus. What makes this even more problematic is that nobody seems to agree exactly what that means.
One christians blogger I discovered says that becoming like Jesus means living like the historic Jesus, as found in the four gospels. Taken literally, this blogger says that christians should strive to be unmarried celibate peasants, who are anti-family, hang out with criminals and sinners, and make religious people angry. (Like that’s ever going to be spoken from the pulpit.) Hey, wait a minute, I haven’t spoken to some of my family members for years, I hang out with sinners and none of my religious friends from my “church days” still speak to me. Does that make me more like Jesus?
Other christian websites teach that “becoming like Jesus” has nothing to do with the historic Jesus of the Gospels. (Not quite sure how that’s even possible.) How can a person instruct others “to be more like Jesus”, without once referencing anything Jesus said or did in his lifetime? As improbable as that might seem, I’ve discovered multiple christian websites that do exactly that.
One such website is called “prepared to answer.org”. Its author, a guy named Scott, says his mission is “to teach a new generation of Christians to think like Jesus.” However, he never references the Gospels as his guide for what it means to think like Jesus. In fact, his entire argument comes from only two verses, (one from Romans 12 and the other from Isaiah.) There is not one single specific reference to the historical Jesus. So, how can Scott instruct his readers to think like Jesus if he completely ignores any reference to a historical Jesus? Let’s find out.
His three-part, 2,700-word blog does not attempt to answer the question of WHAT it means to be like Jesus, but rather he addresses HOW to become like Jesus. Which begs the question, if you don’t know WHAT you’re striving for, HOW will you know if you’ve actually accomplished that goal.
The first part of his three-part series is entitled, How to Live Like Jesus. Scott starts by asking a question.
“Do you want to live like Jesus?
What christian would say NO to that question? He then explains the HOW of living like Jesus.
Scott: “And the key (to being like Jesus) isn’t with some hidden formula, secret knowledge, or mystical experience only available to the “truly spiritual”. All that’s required is…
Wait for it!
Wait for it!
Wait for it.
…listening to and trusting what God plainly tells you.”
This is where other evangelical websites would tell us that the way to know what God “plainly tells us”, can be found in his infallible and inerrant Bible, but that’s not what Scott does. Scott doesn’t go into detail about HOW to know what God plainly tells you and he fails to back up his statement with scripture. This is where Scott’s blog starts to really go off the rails and becomes a bit concerning. Anyone who has studied the anatomy of cults knows that this is how cults begin. Somebody claims that God has plainly told them something. It usually becomes clear that their revelation from God is plainly telling them to do exactly what they want to do anyway. But Scott’s not done yet.
The HOW of living like Jesus
“Even Jesus didn’t live like Jesus just by (sic) just trying really hard. Rather, he lived in perfect obedience to God because his mind was perfectly aligned with the mind and will of the Father. If that was true for Jesus, then it must be true for us.”
There you have it, the key to living like Jesus is to perfectly align your mind with the mind of the God of the entire universe. How likely is that, really?
Jesus didn’t have to try really hard to live like Jesus. Brilliant, Scott, just brilliant! I was curious what level of theological education it would take for Scott claim that Jesus didn’t have to try hard to live like Jesus, so I scoured the “Prepared to Answer” website to find Scott’s bio and credentials but could not find anything. A statement like that makes me wonder if he has any theological training and even more, any common sense.
What I did find, however, was their statement of purpose, which says,
“Prepared to Answer was established in response to the alarming rate of attrition among younger Christians who are departing from their faith commitments to Jesus Christ due in large part to our culture’s successful creation of a false dichotomy between ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ spheres of life.”
From Where I Stand
After reading Scott’s blog, I’d have to say that the alarming rate of attrition of young christians who are departing from the faith is not so much due to “our culture” creating a false dichotomy. It seems more likely that this mass exodus from christianity is due in large part to the kind of nonsense that christian leaders like Scott ask their readers to accept. Just look at some of the other nonsense ideas he proposes.
- “I think the reason many Christians aren’t living transformed lives is because they’re pursuing God’s heart while ignoring His mind.”
- “We fail to live like Jesus because we haven’t learned to think the way he thinks.” (present tense)
- You see, living like Jesus means approving of what God approves of; wanting what God wants; and calling good what God calls good, acceptable what he calls acceptable, and perfect what he calls perfect.
- But we can do none of those things until we learn to think like Jesus.
Maybe younger christians are ignorant enough, and gullible enough to swallow Scott’s sticky sweet pablum. The ironic part of Scott’s blog is that he is asking his readers to engage their minds in order to live like Jesus and expand their relationship with their God, while at the same time he provides nothing more than overused christian clichés, lacking any substance or original thought. Scott ends his blog by encouraging his readers “to accept God’s call to consciously, intentionally, diligently, and faithfully retrain themselves to think like Jesus.”
From where I stand, it’s clear that rather than trying to think like Jesus, Scott’s readers would be much better off if they simply learned how to think for themselves. Unfortunately, most christians feel more comfortable when someone else is telling them what to think. Until they learn to question what they are being asked to believe, christian websites like “prepare to answer.org” will continue to crank out overused christian clichés (as we shall see in future blogs). And the saddest part is that no one really benefits from these kinds christian clichés and in the end, no one will be better off for it.
End note: It would appear that the only verse Scott quotes to support his point (Romans 12:2) is a double-edged sword. The verse says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” David Johnson and Jeff Van Vonderen in their book about spiritual abuse, note that the verse can also apply to performance-based churches that require their members to conform to the rules and regulations of the church, leading to a form of spiritual abuse. Once again, members of performance-based churches would be better off learning to think for themselves.
From Where I Stand
July 20, 2025
Dale Crum