Pacesetting: Modeling

I'm sitting on the edge of my seat taking notes and soaking up new revelations on godliness, or servanthood, or world vision. The speaker has me. I will follow him almost anywhere. I'm excited! I'm motivated! I'm convinced I need to do something. But what?

I'm excited to hear what his recommendation will be. Hand out a dozen tracts? Give up watching television? Get up an hour earlier to pray every morning? Skip lunch and pray for the world? I'm waiting! I'm ready! What will it be? . . . .

“And now Brother Bill will come up and lead us in the closing hymn.”

What? That's it? I need closure. I need an application. I need something to do! I'm frustrated. Another message goes by the wayside because I can't figure out how to apply it to my life. My mind has been informed. My emotions have been stirred. But my will has not been challenged. So I shuffle on to the next activity of my life, unchanged, except for my growing sense of frustration.

It happens over and over again. More times than I can count in the past 30 years.

My frustrations are a major driving force behind this web site. They keep me going! God asked me to do it. I love creating the content. I am happily obedient, pressing ahead with this project. I enjoy it, for the most part. And when it gets hard or I get distracted, God provides ample frustration to remind me I need to share my experiences in practical discipleship on this web site.

Pacesetting requires modeling. You can't just tell people what to do, you have to show and tell them how to do it.

A model is a person to copy. A model gives us a good example to follow.

As a college student, I was mentored by a man five years older than me. One day, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up something. I can't remember what. But I do remember, that as we walked across the parking lot, he was collecting shopping carts and pushing them toward the door to take them inside. Three, four, five carts.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“They are in people's way. I am moving them.” He said.

“What?”

“I'm moving them to serve the other shoppers who will come later.” He said.

No Bible study or message on serving others has had as much impact on me as that simple example. Five minutes invested in modeling servanthood yielded a life long return in my life. And the amazing thing was, he wasn't trying to model servanthood, it was just part of his life.

Pacesetting requires modeling. Talk is cheap. Doing is profitable. (Proverbs 14:23)

Don't tell people what to do. Do it with them. I share a lot of different ideas on how to follow Jesus Christ on Practical-Discipleship.com. I can't do all of these things with everyone who visits this web site. I wish I could. But I can explain “how to” do it. Or at least, how I do it.

Let's look at some of the areas for modeling mentioned in the Bible.

Areas to Model

Suffering

Jesus modeled suffering. “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21) [As a side note, one of the best selling Christian novels of all times is based on this verse. “In His Steps” by Charles M. Sheldon]

Jesus suffered. I will suffer. Jesus knew it was God's will for Him to suffer by dying on a cross. He did it willingly. I need to recognize it's God's will for me and suffer willingly.

I need to suffer for doing good. (1 Peter 2:20)
I need to suffer without complaining (Philippians 2:14)
I need to rejoice when I suffer (Romans 5:3)

People are watching me. People are watching you. When we suffer, they watch. They expect us to whine, complain and look for ways to avoid suffering. When we act differently, they want to know why. They want to follow our positive example.

Patience

“Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:10) I am not what you call a “patient man.” But, I've been working on it over the past three decades. I'm working on patience because I know it is important. It's important for my development. It's important for me to model it for the younger men and women I mentor.

Practical discipleship tips on patience

Life

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings -- . . .” (2 Timothy 3:10,11) Paul hid nothing from Timothy. Timothy saw and heard it all. Paul's life was an open book. He was a model.

When I mentor men and women, I engage in life with them. I like to work along side people. I like to play along side them. I like it when we all sweat together. I think we learn more from each other when we are side-by-side, then when we are face-to-face.

Our lives are examples. Mine, yours, everyone's. The question is, “Am I a model of Biblical values or a model of secular culture values?”

I recently saw a statistic that only 14 percent of Christians live a life based on Biblical values. What about you?

I have to ask, does my life look more like Jesus or more like Hank Hill or maybe Homer Simpson?

Am I obedient to the commands of the Bible or to the commands and influence of mass media commercialization?

What kind of a model are you?

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Posted on January 31, 2009