From the archives of Oral Roberts
One day, when I was a young man attending a sociology class at a university where I was studying, the professor began to lecture about how it was a scientific impossibility for God to have created a woman from a man’s rib. This school was not affiliated with my denomination, so I didn’t feel as if I had a right to speak up, but the longer the professor talked, the more uncomfortable I became. Finally the Lord nudged me, telling me to leave the classroom. As I got into my car, the Holy Spirit spoke in my heart and said, “Son, don’t be like other men. Don’t be like other preachers. Don’t be like your denomination. You be like Jesus and heal the people as He did.”
Then the Lord showed me that I had just been an echo up to that point. An echo is a secondary sound of a voice or noise. It’s not the original, but a bounced-off version of the original. An echo is always less than the original. That had been the story of my life up until that point. I had been in the ministry twelve years, and my preaching was bouncing off the walls. I was trying to copy other preachers, and I was becoming just an echo of them.
The Spirit’s words brought me up short: “You be like Jesus.”
Friend, that’s a good word for all of us. Determine within yourself today that you are going to be like Jesus. You’re not going to be a copy of anyone you know. Resolve that you’re not going to be just the average Christian in your church and community. Be like Jesus!
Read the Gospels and the book of Acts and discover Jesus again. Let His life come rising up off the pages to you until you can see Him walking and talking and living in your world. And then be like Him!
