Humanity at its best

Have you ever wondered what humans were meant to be? Sometimes when you look at our world and you see what humans do to one another, even to the planet you wonder.... Yet we do not need to wonder because we have been shown exactly what a human is to be.
Just as God gave Moses a pattern for the tabernacle and told him to see to it that he follows it exactly, so we have a pattern of humanity that we are to follow exactly. And as the pattern Moses was to follow was of heavenly origins, so is our pattern of human living.
Of course, the pattern I am talking about is the pattern left for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. He showed us exactly what humans were destined to be. In fact, in our reading in John 5 we learn some crucial points about that pattern. Consider the following verses:
John 5 :19 "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
John 5:30 "I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not My own will but the will of Him who sent Me."
What was the key to Jesus' perfect humanity? He lost His will in the will of the Father. So much in love with the Father was He that all He wanted to do was serve the Father's purposes, to do the works He knew were central to the outworking of the Father's purposes in this world. That's it - very simple - but not easy to live out - at least by ourselves.
So how do we begin to approach living out this "humanity at its best"? I think Paul's statement in Galatians 1:15 tells us what we need to know. He said, "But when He who set me apart before I was born, and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,...
It all begins with God. He sets us apart before we were born for living a life in conformity to Christ. Then in time He calls us to Himself by His grace. This grace - this calling us to newness of life through the cleansing of our hearts and the implanting of the Spirit - enables us to begin to live life as Christ lived so that Christ might "be revealed" in each of us. This grace enables us to lay down our will as Christ did, and in love to passionately pursue the Father's will, only wanting to do the works that are in concert with the benevolent purposes He has for this world.
That's humanity at its best - living as Christ lived - wholly given to Father. And it is all possible by the Father's workings in our life. This world needs to see more and more humans whose lives are shining out what humanity was meant to be in the first place. God help each of us to be such an example today!