Quotes about Christlikeness

God's grace turns out men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not milksops.

The mark of spirituality is the fragrance of Christ in our lives and the fragrance of Christ in every aspect of who we are as a person.

Nobody moves toward real Christlikeness without humility. Humility is not a bad self-image or a nonassertive personality. Humility is an eager willingness to see where you are wrong in order to experience the power of God that has already made you fit for His presence.

Finally, simply do what you know to do. If you stumble, get up. If you sin, repent. Whatever you do, in spite of your feelings, do not lose your vision of Christlikeness. Your vision is your surest hope. Guard it. If you are faithful to your goal of Christlikeness, God will give you the grace to live in His presence. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed, you also will be revealed with Him in glory (Col. 3:3—4). —FRANCIS FRANGIPANE

The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfil the Sermon on the Mount.

We cannot behave on the spot as he did and taught if in the rest of our time we live as everybody else does. The on the spot episodes are not the place where we can, even by the grace of God, redirect unchristlike but ingrained tendencies of action toward sudden Christlikeness. Our efforts to take control at that moment will fail so uniformly and ingloriously that the whole project of following Christ will appear ridiculous to the watching world.

The purpose of God isn't to save us from Hell. The purpose of God is to make us like Christ.

The fruit of wisdom is Christlikeness, peace, humility and love. And, the root of it is faith in Christ as the manifested wisdom of God.

So "come, let us worship" (Psalm 95:6) the one, true God who has ordained the Spiritual Discipline of worshiping Him—in public, in the family, and in private—as one of the most bountiful means of receiving the grace to grow in Christlikeness. For as we grow in the worship of God, we grow in the likeness of Christ.

It must be important to God, for he tells us that "without holiness no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). Holiness is not a list of dos and don'ts. Rather, it is Christlikeness.

There will be more Christlikeness in us only when we humble ourselves and say, 'God, I can't live the life you meant for me on my own. I don't have the love, wisdom, or power. But come, Holy Spirit, and pour it into me. Teach me what it means to walk in the Spirit.

True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.