How many times have we heard someone say, “You’re the spitting image of your father or mother.”  Usually meant as a compliment, it can also have a negative connotation.  As I thought about compliments, I wondered if Jesus ever had a follower say: “Jesus, you look exactly like your Father.”  If she did, Jesus would probably say: “I always prayed someone would see the resemblance.”

Jesus wants to show us His Father.  He did this through His preaching and by the respect He gave to others.  In all these moments, Jesus is delightfully answering “If you know me, you will know my father also." And, “If you see me, you see the Father.” Jesus is like His Father in all He did, and He hopes everyone He met along the way catches this similarity.

Jesus wants us to be like His Father too.  He spent His public ministry pointing out the ways, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  If we follow Jesus’ significant suggestions, we too can enjoy the same closeness to His Father that He enjoyed.  Jesus’ Father will “never leave us orphans,” and He “sends us the same Holy Spirit” to accompany us on our travels.

Now while this sounds easy enough, we still meet obstacles that pull us in other directions. The biggest of those obstacles is ourselves!  That’s why Jesus insists we believe in Him first: “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact will do greater things because of the works themselves.”

Believing in Jesus gives us the grace we need to help Jesus complete His redemptive work.  And when we do, accept Jesus and help in His work, His Father is overjoyed, because He knows one day we will all share together eternity.

Until then, use your gifts daily.  Our gifts are uniquely ours, but they are best used when they help others.  While we all have gifts, no one has gifts quite the same as yours.  They are exclusively yours to give, especially where others can benefit the most.  Following Christ means living with our hearts open, always prepared to share our gifts, especially with those neighbors closest to us.

When we give of our gifts to help another, we become more fully who we are made to be.  When we are fully who God meant us to be, we are the spitting image of Jesus.  Then others around us will say, “You resemble the God who made you.” 

And God, at that moment, is “well pleased.”