Gospel – Matthew 8 – 10

Whew!  Today’s reading takes a look at what Jesus did after His sermon on the mount.

Bible Passage:  Matthew 8 – 10

And if you literally get breathless reading about what Jesus did immediately after He came down from the mountain.

Jesus indicated that those who follow Him will become like Him (Matt 10:25).

What does it mean to be like Jesus?

We read in these few chapters the Servant like actions of Jesus.

Christlike values, in this case, meant servant actions – obedience to the will of God and not just listening to sermons and speaking sermons (Matt 7:21-29).

I want you to count how many people Jesus ‘served’ in Chapters 8 and 9.  From my own count, there were more than 25 different people.  These included the undesirables like lepers, a Roman centurion, the demon possessed, the tax collectors, and a diseased outcase woman.

Being like Jesus means we need to befriend the weak, those under oppression or those without Christ.  We must learn to be a friend of sinners.  Jesus did much more than just sharing with them the Words of God – He served them.

One of the songs I learned many years ago in college was “Make Me Like You”.  The lyrics go something like this:

Lord make me like you
Please make me like you
You are a servant, make me one too
Oh Lord I am willing
Do what you must do
To make me like you Lord
Make me like you.

When I was first introduced to it, I was wondering why would anyone sing about asking Jesus to make me like Him?  Like Him?  I want to love Him!

Then… after singing it many times, I realized in embarassment that it was actually a song about asking our Lord to make me more in His image and not one to make me love Him more and more!

Indeed, sometimes in our quest for God’s love and wanting to be like Him, we missed out the service part of the Lord’s life.  We do not serve others as the Lord did.

Certainly nothing was too large for Him.  But NOTHING was too small for Him either.

I spent many weeks looking for this song recently and the closest I came to finding it was 2 Youtube videos.  I chose to share one of them as the lady has a very lovely voice.  The only problem is that in her version of the song… only somewhere in the middle of the song is the part which I love so much and sang over and over again many years ago.

Lord make me like you
Please make me like you
You are a servant, make me one too
Oh Lord I am willing
Do what you must do
To make me like you Lord
Make me like you.