Imitation of Christ

Each of us can imitate Christ in the following ways:

• By desiring that all our thoughts, feelings, words and deeds be directed to the glory of God, and with clear and complete love for Him arising from the bottom of our hearts, desiring to be with Him.
• By trying to do everything God approves of and commands, in complete obedience to Him; rejecting all He forbids, even if we must sacrifice ourselves to be faithful to Him.
• By living in humility, honesty, and chastity, in moral purity and blamelessness; and by working to increase our spirituality with good deeds.
• By compassion toward all people and their struggles, accepting their failure as our own failure, their happiness as our own happiness, and being ready to help those who are in need, even at our own expense.
• By cultivating love for all people - not only the ones we love and those who are good to us, but also our personal enemies - and with humility, accepting insults and injustices against us and forgiving them, as the Lord Jesus Christ forgives us.
• By fervent prayer: "And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. And His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).

(Bishop Alexander Mileant)