Imitation

HT @John Wylie

The One Who DId Not Forget

"..But now, for the first time in human history, a man had come who really believed that He was the beloved of God, one who would always remember and would make every decision of His life based on the truth of those words.

Jesus was like us in many ways. Scripture says He was 'in all points tempted as we are.' But of all the ways He was different from us, perhaps this is the most crucial one. Jesus never forgot who He was."

-Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, pages 43-44 (italics in the original)

We Have Already Faced the Future

"..The world runs the way it does because we are a people of the present - people with so much to do and so much to be afraid of. When we begin to live like Jesus, people will perceive our peace as an indictment in their violence; they will see our security as an indictment on their insecurity. It is a fearful thing to behold someone who is truly human in all the ways that Jesus said we could be- precisely because we have nothing left to be afraid of. we have already faced the future, so the future is not intimidating to us anymore."

-Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 19

From the Future, Fully Alive in the Present

"Please understand, there are so many ways in which I am not yet like Jesus. But like Jesus, I now know my identity as God's beloved son. Like Jesus, I live with an awareness of God's presence that I didn't have before. Like Jesus, I'm now able to live unafraid of the future, because the future has already come barreling down on me. I'm learning to live more boldly, less fearfully, and less tentatively than I used to. I am more like a man from the future who is fully alive in the present."

-Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 17

Eyes to See

"..That's the beautiful thing about coming to faith. It's not about changing anything in your world - at least not at first, It's about coming to see the world that you already know, but in a new way. It's a new set of lenses and a new language, so that now when you look at the same world, you see something different, and you hae a new vocabulary to describe familiar expereinces...

..This is about coming awake to God. And if we become awake to God, we become awake to everything and everyone around us."

Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, pages 14-15

Reading "Prototype"

I'm currently reading a great book called , Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin. The author is pastor of Renovatus Church in Charlotte NC. Here's a trailer video describing what the book is about.





What a concept! What an explosive idea! Expect a lot of quotes to be posted here.