Follow My Example
You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you.
Philippians 4:9 CEV
There are people who shaped you in ways you may not have fully recognized at the time. A mentor who sat with you when you were just starting out and did not laugh at your questions. Someone who walked with you through grief and knew when to speak and when to simply stay. Another who helped you find your footing when a decision felt too large to carry alone. Each one brought something different — a different season, a different kind of wisdom — but they all had one thing in common. They did not just tell you what to do. They showed you how they had lived it.
That is what makes a mentor different from a manual. A manual gives you steps. A mentor gives you their story. And when you apply what they shared — when you take their principles off the page and put them into practice in your own life — something shifts. The knowledge becomes yours. The wisdom takes root.
Paul understood this. He did not write to the Philippians and say, follow the rules I gave you. He said, follow my example. You heard what I said. You saw what I did. Now do the same. There is a confidence in that invitation that only comes from someone who has actually lived what they are teaching. Paul had been in prison and in plenty. He had faced beatings and shipwrecks and betrayal. And through all of it, he had found something that held. He was not offering theory. He was offering a tested life.
And then there is Jesus.
Every mentor you have ever had was, in some way, pointing toward Him — toward the kind of wisdom that does not run out, the kind of presence that does not leave when the season changes, the kind of example that holds up under every circumstance life can produce. Jesus did not just teach peace as a concept. He lived it as a practice. He moved through crowds that wanted to make Him king and crowds that wanted to kill Him with the same steady center. He wept at a graveside and then called the dead man out. He prayed in a garden while His disciples slept and walked into His arrest without flinching.
What kept Him? Peace. Not the absence of trouble — He had plenty of that. But an inward stability that trouble could not reach. Peace was not His reward for having an easy life. It was the foundation that made it possible to live the life He was called to live. It was His motivator. His anchor. The thing that gave every act of healing and every hard conversation and every long night of prayer its purpose.
And He offers the same to you.
Follow my example, He says. Not because the path will be easy, but because the peace that carried Me will carry you too. The God who gives peace will be with you — not just near you, not just available to you, but with you. Present. Active. Stabilizing the same interior space that the world keeps trying to unsettle.
You have had good mentors. You have learned from people who shared their wisdom generously and walked with you through seasons you could not have navigated alone. Let that be the foundation. And then let Jesus be the one you follow from here — the mentor whose example never expires, whose peace never runs dry, and whose presence never depends on the circumstances being favorable.
Decide today that He will lead you. And let peace be yours.
Reflections
Who are the mentors who shaped you most, and what specific wisdom did they pass on that you still carry? In what area of your life do you most need the stabilizing peace that Jesus modeled — not the absence of trouble, but the inward calm that holds through it? What would it look like practically to follow Jesus' example this week in one specific relationship or responsibility? How might choosing peace as your foundation — rather than waiting for peace as a reward — change how you approach today?
Prayer
Lord, I am grateful for every person You placed in my life who took the time to share their wisdom with me. They gave me more than advice — they gave me their story, and I am better for it. Now I want to learn from You. I want to study how You lived, how You loved, how You stayed steady when everything around You was in motion. I want the peace that kept You — not a peace that depends on my circumstances cooperating, but the deep inward peace that holds when they do not. Be my example. Be my anchor. Lead me through every decision, every hard season, every moment when I am tempted to let the noise outside disturb what You are building inside. I have decided — You will lead me, and peace will be mine. In Jesus Name, Amen.