IMITATE JESUS CHRIST

37. Whose example should we seek to imitate when experiencing affliction?

³⁷ Under affliction, then, look always to God’s Son as your model. The apostle writes: “Since Christ suffered in the flesh, you too arm yourselves with the same mental disposition; because the person that has suffered in the flesh has desisted from sins,

1 Peter 4:1,

38. What was the mental disposition of Jesus Christ?

³⁸ What was Jesus’ mental disposition? He humbly submitted to the physical and verbal abuse heaped on him, finally to die a painful death on a stake. By never retaliating in kind, the Son of God fulfilled the prophetic words: “As a sheep he was brought to the slaughter, and as a lamb that is voiceless before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.”​—Acts 8:32; Isaiah 53:7.

39. What proves that we have desisted from sins?

³⁹ We servants of the Most High would want to bear up similarly under suffering, not yielding to a spirit of rebellion or retaliation. For us to threaten our persecutors, to look for opportunities to do them harm, would show us up as still subject to the passions of the sinful flesh.