Quotes & Sayings About Imitating Christ

Philippians 2:3-8 tells us to humble ourselves by imitating Christ. Even though He is God, He was willing to add humanity to His deity. Becoming a human being was degrading to the second Person of the Godhead beyond words to describe it. In His humanity the omnipotent God became tired. The omniscient God grew in wisdom. The omnipresent God was circumscribed in a localized body. The sovereign God willingly submitted Himself to do the Father's will. The eternal God died in the cruelest manner imaginable. The holy Go was made sin for us. — Randy Jaeggli

If we suffer persecution and affliction in a right manner, we attain a larger measure of conformity to Christ, by a due improvement of one of these occasions, than we could have done merely by imitating his mercy, in abundance of good works. — John Wesley

Who, Abelard demanded, would forgive such a God for killing his own son? Abelard proposed that Christ died for the sake of love, providing a model of self-sacrificial passion for humankind. Salvation entailed imitating Christ in his love for others, the love that God revealed in Jesus's death for his friends. As Christ had done, we also do. As contemporary theologians Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker say of Abelard's view, "The atonement created a deeper love for God than would have been possible without it," creating the prospect that human hearts could be transformed "from fear to love."36 — Diana Butler Bass

Jesus was clear that following Him meant - get this - following Him. The church has put so much effort into inventing a new form of "following Christ" that doesn't require imitating Him. We teach that even though Jesus allowed His rights to be trampled, we should fight for ours. We teach that even though Jesus lived simply, we have the right to live luxuriously (some prefer the term "comfortably"). Even as we teach that Jesus was rejected by the world, we pursue popularity. — Francis Chan

The lives of many reflect the practices and standards of this present world ... they are more interested in imitating the world system dominated by Satan than in imitating Christ. — Billy Graham

When we appeal to the throne of grace we do so through Mary, honoring God by honoring His Mother, imitating Him by exalting her, touching the most responsive chord in the sacred heart of Christ with the sweet name of Mary. — Robert Bellarmine

Don't pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with Himself and that He would love in and through you. Don't pray that He would teach you to have joy; pray that the living God full of joy would enter into you. Don't pray that He would teach you how to be peaceful; ask for the God of peace, the Prince of peace to infill you. Because if you try to imitate in your own strength, you will be a miserable replica. But if you allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake you, suddenly it all works because it is Him imitating Himself, and He is very good at being God. — Eric Ludy

People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned. — Florence Nightingale

ROSEMARY
Beauty and Beauty's son and rosemary -
Venus and Love, her son, to speak plainly -
born of the sea supposedly, at Christmas each, in company,
braids a garland of festivity.
Not always rosemary - since the flight to Egypt, blooming differently.
With lancelike leaf, green but silver underneath,
its flowers - white originally -
turned blue. The herb of memory,
imitating the blue robe of Mary,
is not too legendary
to flower both as symbol and as pungency.
Springing from stones beside the sea,
the height of Christ when thirty-three -
it feeds on dew and to the bee
"hath a dumb language"; is in reality
a kind of Christmas-tree. — Marianne Moore