Young boys and
young men crave a father figure. Young girls and young women crave a mother
figure. We look for heroes to emulate. We look for someone who is excelling in
an area we are passionate about so we can imitate them.
If a young man’s
passion is to follow Christ, he looks for an older man who has been successful at
this. If his biological father did not model it, he might look to a pastor.
This is not wrong. God created us to need role models.
The apostle Paul
taught this concept repeatedly. He told the Philippians, “The things you
have… seen in me, practice these things” (Philippians 4:9). He told the
Thessalonians that he offered himself “as a model” for them so that they
would follow his example (2 Thessalonians 3:9). He told the Corinthians, “Be
imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
One of the main ways
we behold Christ is by beholding His attributes in spiritual fathers and
mothers. This is vital because the way we are transformed into His image is by
beholding Him. This is why 2 Corinthians 3:18 says it is by beholding Him that
we are “transformed into the same image” or why Hebrews 2:12 says to fix
“our eyes on Jesus”.
However, it is
also common to turn spiritual fathers and mothers into idols. We begin looking
more to them as our model than to Christ. When we do this, we not only take on
their good qualities, but unconsciously take on their bad ones as well. A key
lesson on the road to spiritual maturity is learning how to behold and emulate Christ-like
qualities in others without turning them into an idol.
The same is true
of our approach to scripture. We emulate certain attributes of men and women in
scripture because they are part of Christ’s nature. Abraham kept strong faith
while he waited for God’s promise because it is the nature of Jesus to have
strong faith. Jacob longed for a great spiritual inheritance because it is the
nature of Jesus to long for a great spiritual inheritance. David’s passionate
heart of worship; Daniel’s courage in the face of death; Jeremiah’s grief and
brokenness over Israel’s sin; Solomon’s wisdom to rule; Job’s commitment not to
blame God for his suffering – all these qualities point to the nature of Jesus.
Their successes were only possible through His empowerment. By contrast, their
failures are also recorded to help us avoid turning them into idols, but to see
them as human and avoid repeating their mistakes.
Because different
men and women embody different aspects of Christ’s nature, it is good to have
multiple models to emulate over the course of our lives. This helps remind us
that it is ultimately Christ we are seeking to behold, not any other man or
woman.
As spiritual sons
and daughters, we must guard our hearts against idolizing our role models. We
must guard against wanting their approval more than the approval of God. We
must guard against thinking they are always right and could never mislead us.
We must guard against putting them ahead of our spouse. (The command to leave
our father and mother and cleave to our spouse can apply to spiritual parents,
as well as biological parents.) We must remember our ultimate goal is not to
become like them, but to become like the Lord. If we are looking more to Christ
than to our role models, we will be able to receive the good without also
taking on the bad.
My Serious
Mistakes
I made serious mistakes in this area early in my marriage. For several years I
beheld a man that I thought of as a spiritual father figure whom I now believe
is a deceiver. Among other problems, he modeled a false message that a man’s
outside-the-home calling is more important than his inside-the-home calling. This
is like putting the building before the foundation it is built upon. If I had
not made this man into an idol, perhaps I would have been able to receive some
good things without taking on the bad. Instead, I did turn him into an idol and
it nearly destroyed my marriage.
While my marriage
was being restored, I felt like the Lord impress upon me that I need to be
re-fathered, spiritually. As I prayed about who my new spiritual father figure
should be, I felt led to an evangelical leader whose ministry was devoted to
building godly marriages and families. I began reading and listening to all the
material he published. The more I spent time receiving from him, the more I
became inspired by God’s perspective of the high calling of a husband and a
father.
Next
Many young people sincerely desire to live sold-out lives for the Lord, but do not know how because they did not receive adequate modeling. This was also the case of the generation that entered the Promise Land in the book of Joshua. In the next chapter, we’ll find out how God prepared them for their destinies.