True Christianity is incarnational, not imitational. It is not an imitation of Christ. Instead, it is a manifestation of Christ. There is a huge difference. An imitation of Christ is a life of studying about Jesus from the Scriptures and then doing your best with the help of the Holy Spirit to act like Jesus in every situation. Incarnational Christianity is from the inside out. It is allowing our body to be the body through which Jesus lives his life. Corporately the Church is called the “body of Christ” because we contain the life of Christ and, therefore, the body through which Jesus lives his life on the earth. Ephesians 1 says that the Church is the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
The Nativity was an incarnational event. John 1:18 says, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw HIS glory. God came to earth and clothed Himself in human flesh and therefore made himself incarnational (visibly known). The child in the manger gives us insight into God’s redemptive plan for fallen humanity. He would take up residence in us by the Holy Spirit, thus clothing himself with our unique humanity, and manifest His victorious life through us. This is the life and life more abundant that Jesus came to give us. Christianity is not trying to imitate a Jesus that you studied. It is manifesting the Jesus that has taken up residence in you, allowing you to participate in His wondrous life. Don’t dummy it down. Allow yourself to fully embrace the magnificent reality that you are the body of Christ, the body through which He now lives. The life He lived then (in the pages of the Gospels); lived now, by Him, through us.