Winning the Jesus Christ Lookalike Contest

“A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ.” – C.H. Spurgeon

It happened about 45 years ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday…

I was sitting around a pool – where, I don’t recall – and a young man walked by my lounge chair. I looked up from the book I was reading and did a double-take, because I felt like I was looking in the mirror.

I had heard the word “doppelganger” before, but until that moment it was just a hypothetical phrase. But now, I had seen with my very own eyes a guy who was the spitting image of me. Same lean build, same curly brown hair, and same thin mustache. Poor fellow, I thought!

Since then, I have seen people that are mirror images of other people I know – friends, relatives, or even famous folks. However, I have never seen another Dale Glading doppelganger… and I suppose that is a very good thing.

The older I get and the closer I get to heaven, the more I want to resemble Someone else. No, He doesn’t have curly brown hair and a thin mustache (or at least not that I know of). But even if He does, that isn’t how I wish to resemble Jesus Christ. Instead, I want to look like His character, His attributes, and all the things that make Him who and what He is. Loving… compassionate… forgiving… holy… just to name a few.

Will I ever come close to winning a “Jesus Lookalike Contest” here on earth? Not a chance! However, I will gladly settle for becoming a little more like Him each and every day until I finally see Him face to face in heaven.

Let’s give Charles Spurgeon – and the Bible – the last word on the subject…

“If we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, we would be pictures of Christ; yes, such striking likenesses of Him that the world would not have to hold us to the mirror and say, ‘Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness’; they would, when they saw us, exclaim, ‘He has been with Jesus; he has been taught by Him; he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he works it out in his life and everyday actions.’"

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13 (NKJV)

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” I Corinthians 13:12 (ESV)

“But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger. How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:25-27 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President