Prayer to Live As A Positive Role Model
Saturday August 15, 2020
ROLE MODELS
I’ve been thinking about role models these days.
In my journal I recently noted some amazing words that Saint Paul wrote in the Bible that challenge me every time I read them. He said,
Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters,
and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes
on those who live as we do.
Philippians 3:17
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1
How many of us would feel like we were really giving the best advice to someone if we told them to think as we think, speak as we speak, and act as we act? Really? Maybe in certain aspects and certain areas of life but what about when we are tired and stressed and angry and fearful and worried and …. Well the list goes on.
As much as I pray to be someone who models the lifestyle Jesus came to show us, I know how often and how far I fall short. I take comfort in the fact that we are reminded in God’s word that:
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Romans 3:23
I don’t ever want to let that fact of all of us falling short of the mark keep me from coming to God and giving my best effort, owning up to the failures that are mine, asking for forgiveness, taking responsibility to make things right.
I’m grateful for role models in my life of those who did their best in their ordinary lives to be solid followers of Jesus Christ. Many of us knew a man named Ravi Zacharias who died earlier this year and whose graceful ways of speaking truth and confronting tough questions from lots of hostile people sets a high bar for us to reach for.
I’m grateful too for examples all down through history of those who, by the way they lived, call us to do better.
I’m thinking again of Daniel in the Bible who lived such a moral and godly life that when people wanted to attack him they couldn’t find a way to do it from the way he conducted himself in business so they made up a bogus plan to attack him and bring harm to him for his habit of praying and honouring God.
Today we give thanks for role models and pray that God will make us one:
Lord, the list of those who have lived lives that are a role model for us is long. We’re grateful for the famous ones like Noah and Daniel and even Ravi Zacharias. We’re also grateful for those people who quietly and steadily lived faithful lives before You and touched our lives. I’m grateful for my grandad John Thornton who I didn’t get to know too much but who everyone speaks about with such respect for how he spoke to God and lived his life before God. My mom, Rose Zaiger, certainly carries on that tradition for all of us.
Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works,
and in your teaching show integrity, dignity,
Titus 2:7
But Lord today, the challenge is there for each of us to be a role model for those who are coming after us. Oh Spirit of God, would You work in us today so our hearts and lives are what You want us to be and show the way for those who are coming to faith or just growing up in years wondering how to do life.
For I have given you an example, that you also should do
just as I have done to you.
John 13:15
Jesus, You yourself set an example for us in loving service to others – seeking to serve rather than to be served, to love rather than requiring love from others, to even go the second mile. It’s so not easy!!! We fall short far too often.
Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct,
in love, in faith, in purity.
1 Timothy 4:12b
But today, we’re going to make one promise, that we will simply not give up. We will set our hearts and minds to living as You’ve instructed us and modeled for us. Help us today to be an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. We’re hopeless without You but in the power of Your love, we can do so much more than we can imagine. Amen
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