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The Christian Clone
Probably one of the most
collectible classic cars is the 427 Shelby Cobra. Auction prices of over $1
million are the norm and a Super Snake model sold at the Barrett Jackson
Auction for $5 million. There were actually a very small number of the
427/428 models produced with production numbers of less than 350 cars total.
Most of the Cobras you see on the street or at car shows are actually
replicas or continuation cars and not the real thing produced in that narrow
1965-1967 time period.
Today, kit car manufacturers
sell fiberglass bodied “Cobra” replica kits which allow you to get a car with
the basic styling of the original for a fraction of the cost. The story was
told to me by my racing mentor who had sold some of the Cobra kit models that
almost all the early Cobra fiberglass kit bodies were taken from the same
Cobra Roadster body. You can imagine it would be difficult to find a 427
Cobra owner who would be willing to let you borrow their fragile aluminum
bodied car and disassemble it to pull molds off the body.
Well someone apparently
volunteered their car and a set of molds was created. As other entrepreneurs
saw their opportunity to make their fortune selling Cobra kits, the easy
approach to get into the Cobra kit business quickly was to not bother with
finding an original car to use to make the mold, but instead to simply
purchase another company’s kit and use it to make the mold for your own Cobra
kit car offering.
This is where things began to
break down because the original car that had been used for one of the first
molds had been in a major accident. The wheel openings on one side of the
car were about 1 inch closer together than the other side. Each of the
replicas made from that original flawed car were likewise flawed. Someone
with a sharp eye or a tape measure could quickly look at one of the early
Cobra kits and tell you if had come from that same original flawed body.
Eventually, the word got out and the kit manufacturers had to correct their
molds to make the right and left side of their car bodies symmetrical.
I remember that early in my
Christian walk I found a person that I really looked up to. I began to
imitate that person. I talked like them and used the same expressions.
Unfortunately, I was not them and eventually I discovered that. God had
endowed them with gifts that I did not have. Likewise, I had been given
gifts that they did not have. My life, my ministry would not and should not
look like theirs. There was another thing that I realized—if I patterned my
life after theirs, where would it leave me if they lost their faith or if
they fell into sin? It would leave me without an
object of my faith that I had focused on. Certainly this is part of why a
church can be so devastated by a scandal in the leadership.
We
must encourage those that God has put in our sphere of influence to go
straight to the source and not to become mere clones or flawed replicas of
ourselves. In Philippians 2:12-13 Paul encourages us to “continue to work out
your salvation with fear and trembling.” Our faith is a personal one and
needs to be our own and not a clone of our pastor or Bible study leader’s
faith.
Paul encouraged others to be an imitator of him. His faith and his actions
and his words and his deeds had become so closely aligned that he could say
that. I guess I am not there yet. I can’t say, “Be an imitator of
me,” because my words and actions sometimes disagree. That is a goal to
which I aspire. Instead, we must point others to Christ so they can see Him
in His perfection and flawlessness. We must point them towards being solely
reliant and dependent on Him. Then, when we move to another town or go to
our final resting place, they will continue the life and work that God has
called them to until we meet again in Heaven...
HEB 13:7&8
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome
of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday and today and forever.
Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Church
Riverside, CA
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