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April 20, 2020 - Join Pastor John for a Daily Devotional

April 20, 2020 by Rev. John Hartman

“We Imitate Whom We Adore”

St. Augustine once said, “We imitate whom we adore.” Why did the Nike brand grow so much that every young person in the world, in every far corner of this planet, wanted to wear Nike sneakers? Because of one person: Michael Jordan. You see, we imitate whom we adore. The one who captures our imagination controls our behavior. As we continue our post Easter celebration, but continuing to live out our lives in new ways, let me ask you, does Jesus Christ capture your imagination? Is he your hero? Does he make your heart beat faster when you think of him, or are going to serve in His name?

I remember that part of my captivation took place when I watched the movie, “Ben-Hur.” I loved the Christ that I saw portrayed in the film. In one scene, Judah Ben-Hur, a prince of the Jewish people, has been captured by the Romans. He is being transported from Jerusalem to Rome. The first leg of the journey is across a scorching desert. Judah Ben-Hur is chained with the other prisoners as they stagger along behind a camel train. As they walk, their lips are cracked and bleeding from the heat, and their tongues are swollen with thirst. Finally, they arrive at a village. The camera angle changes to display the brawny back of a carpenter at his workbench. The carpenter can hear the ruckus outside. He looks out and sees that the officer in charge has just entered the village with his prisoners. Villagers scurry as he bellows, “Water for my men and their horses and for the prisoners – in that order!” But, he says, pointing to Ben-Hur, “None for him!” The camera cuts back to the carpenter. He walks to the well, takes a gourd, and fills it with cold water. The camera closes in on the calloused hands of the carpenter as he extends the gourd to Judah Ben-Hur, who crouches in the sand. Ben-Hur grabs the gourd of water and guzzles it down. As he tilts his head back to drink, he looks full into the face of the carpenter. What he sees in the carpenter’s eyes startles him, and he drops the gourd onto the ground. What face could make a man dying of thirst forget all about water? The officer in charge suddenly realizes his orders have been disregarded. He charges the pair. The carpenter simply turns to face the Roman officer. The officer freezes in his tracks. Mumbling incoherently, he turns and walks away. What face can make a Roman officer back down in full view of his men?

In Ephesians, 4:13, The Apostle Paul writes, “. . . until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” As we spend time in God’s word, we begin to immerse ourselves in the figure of Christ, and we absorb, as if we were tea bags, the person of Jesus: his way with people, his moment-by-moment intimacy with his Father as he lived each day, the sparkle in Jesus’ eye as he held great crowds of people spellbound with his wonderful stories, the parables, -- and even his anger. He was a man capable of moral outrage, who would make a whip on the spot to crack over the head of rascals as he drove them from a holy building. Yet, he was also a man of such tenderness that little groups of children would gather as he spoke, knowing that when Jesus had finished speaking to their parents, he would come over and get down on the grass to play with them.

Don’t you adore Jesus Christ? Don’t you want to be like this man? Then spend time in his Word. Why? We imitate whom we adore.