God desires us to be Cookie Cutter Christians, Pt1
Over the years I have heard many people talk about “Cookie Cutter Christians”. When I have heard it mentioned, it has always carried a negative connotation, as if to say “All Christians are the same”.... or .... as if to say “THE CHURCH tends to push people into the same mold... any one who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’, doesn’t belong.”
I used to think that they were right, and that individuality was an important factor of being a Christian. After all, Paul and Peter were not the same type of people.... right? Wrong.
While their personalities were dramatically different.... it wasn’t Peter’s ‘personality’ that mattered to Christ when He chose him to be a disciple. And Paul.... murderous, boastful (read Phil. 3, it’s there), Christian-hater Paul.... wasn’t chosen for his sterling personality either.
What mattered.... was their openness to being shown their error.... their “Repentance”.... and their willingness to yeild EVERYTHING to becoming more like Christ. Consider what Paul must have gone through when he went back to Jerusalem to tell those he once pal’d around with “Hey, I was wrong, Jesus really is the Messiah!”. That’s a conversation I would have loved to have been involved in.
Scripture plainly states that we are all being made more and more “Into the likeness of Christ” (2 Corinthians 3:18).... and like it or not, that means we are all, each and every one of us, seeking to become the same thing: The spitting image of Jesus, in all manner and aspects. And there is ONLY ONE Christ... and thus only ONE image we are to conform to. To seek something else.... is a slap in the face of God who calls us to this.
That would mean that those who bitterly asserted that the church was wrong in trying to conform everyone into the same mold........... were dead wrong themselves. And those who complained that “All Christians are the same”... well... that was a compliment, if you review it in the proper light.
Our “Personalities” are peripheral to the issue of our being Christian --- our willingness to repent... to say we were wrong and to SEEK TO CONFORM TO the image of Christ..... is far more paramount an issue.
Thus, it is safe to say, if we are geuine Christians, we are all therefore .... in different stages of becoming likeminded in all things (2 Corin. 13:11, Phillip. 2:2, 1 Peter 3:8), more and more like our beloved savior. Why? Because the Holy Spirit who trains us.... is one and the same Spirit, regardless of whom He’s working with. He.... is the cookie cutter, and if we resist, we merely show our rebellion towards God, who desires us to be “Cookie Cutter Christians”.
