Following up on the idea of being for Christlike, I think it's important to look at the impossible task of conquering human nature and realize you're not supposed to do it by yourself.
I was assigned a summer reading book for college. It's called "The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama". It's an interesting documentary-style piece that talks about the Dalai lama and who he is, both in public and in private. As a Buddhist the Dalai Lama believes that humans have a problem: it isn't war or famine or poverty- those are just symptoms. The source of these symptoms is the disease of human nature. We are our own enemy.
"[A Buddhist] brings all responsibility inward," writes the author, "so as not to waste time blaming people outside himself, but to see how he can understand (and therefore solve) the problem within."
Later he writes, "...in truth the source of all your power, your answers, lies right here, inside yourself."
Self-betterment is a worthy goal, perhaps even an achievable one. People quit smoking, learn new things, become activists, change for the better all the time. But trying to overcome human nature with human nature is futile. God doesn't ask us as Christians to lay down our lives for people we don't like, or for sinners. He's done that Himself already. He does ask us to have the desire to change, to become more like the men and women we should be. And then He promises to be with us every step of the way, guiding, supporting, and transforming us.
The desire to change is pretty important. If you don't want God messing in your life, He won't, I promise. But if you trust Him, He's gonna give you opportunity after opportunity to change and be transformed.
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